The Pilgrim boys’ ice hockey team suffered a pair of difficult losses over the weekend, falling in West Warwick to Portsmouth 9-0 before returning home for an 8-4 defeat at the hands of North Smithfield.

“Our goal from the start of the year was to win the first game, and we accomplished that,” Pilgrim head coach Stephen Henn said. “We just have to remember that because we accomplished one goal, our work is not done. We’re resilient and we’ve been proven that we’re resilient and we’re gonna battle back the entire year.”

After defeating Lincoln 8-6 last weekend, the Pats were unable to get on the scoring sheet Friday night as they surrendered four goals in both the first and second periods. Henn used the game as a chance to give all three of his goaltenders ice time. Starter M.J. Rocheleau allowed six goals, backup Kamron Murphy yielded two and Cameron Gagnon let one by in the third period.

Despite the off night in net, Henn said that Rocheleau is the team’s starter going forward.

“[M.J.]’s a very, very talented goaltender,” Henn said. “He’s one of our anchors. He’s a good strength to have. M.J. does a very good job. Given the way the game went, we were gonna give everybody, get some looks. We want to keep M.J. in as long as we can, ‘cause that means we’re winning the game, but unfortunately it didn’t happen tonight.”

Pilgrim’s Dean Russo and Patrick Reilly had the best chances to score on the night, but a strong Portsmouth defense held them off the scoreboard all night.

“[Russo and Reilly] are a year stronger, they’re a year better, they’re a year wiser,” Henn said. “They learned a lot last year. That’s really the whole team. We learned a ton. We need to keep learning tonight.”

After a tightly contested opening few minutes, the Patriots got to work. Joshua Arkins scored on an assist from Benjamin O’Hearn to open the scoring four minutes and five seconds into the game.

Aidan O’Brien would score just over one minute after on a wrap-around to pad the lead at 2-0, and 24 seconds later Cameron Mello got on the scoring sheet with a score of his own.

The Patriots would tack on another at the end of the period when Mello potted his second goal, this time assisted by Luke Ingalls.

Things would not get easier for Pilgrim, as Mello, O’Hearn, Jonah Callandret and Noah McHugh would all notch scores in the second period to bump the lead up to 8-0. John Cavanagh provided the lone goal of the third period for either side.

Pilgrim would play in a tighter matchup on Saturday back at Thayer Arena, but would ultimately fall to 1-2 after North Smithfield escaped with an 8-4 victory. Reilly had three points on the night for the Pats.

The Pats will look to move back to .500 this weekend when they host East Greenwich (3-1) at Thayer. The Avengers are coming off a weekend during which they lost to Cumberland, 4-1, before getting past Lincoln, 7-4.

“We expect to win every game, that’s our mentality,” Henn said. “Anything less is unacceptable around here and we’re gonna do what it takes.”