In its first playoff appearance in over a decade, the Pilgrim football team couldn’t convert on its chance to clinch a berth in the Division III finals, as it lost at Classical, 34-8, in the semifinals on Saturday afternoon.

After taking an 8-7 lead towards the end of the first quarter, the Pats’ offense struggled to produce, allowing the Purple to score 27 unanswered points en route to picking up the win.

“I think we’re still trying to handle our emotions,” Pilgrim head coach Tom O’Connor said. “For many years, we were the whipping dog of the league, and now we’re starting to show strides. But our emotions definitely got the best of us. We just left way too many plays on the field.”

It didn’t take long for the Purple to get on the board.

Classical took the opening kickoff, and on the second play from scrimmage, junior running back Gayee Myers found a hole and ran the ball 33 yards down to Pilgrim’s 4-yard line. On the next play, quarterback Aaron Tutu kept it himself and found the end zone. Austin Clark’s extra point would give Classical a 7-0 lead with 11:23 left in the first quarter.

On the ensuing possession, it looked as if Pilgrim would have to punt after three plays, but an encroachment penalty on Classical allowed Pilgrim to extend the drive with a first down.

That proved to be critical for the Pats.

Pilgrim would then lead a drive that encompassed more than seven minutes of clock, ultimately resulting in an 11-yard touchdown run by Owen Kelly with 3:58 remaining in the first quarter. Kelly would run in for the 2-point conversion to give the Pats an 8-7 lead.

That would be Pilgrim’s only lead of the game, though.

In the first minute of the second quarter, Pilgrim faced a fourth-and-11 near midfield, and it would choose to go for it instead of punting the ball away.

The Pats came up short and Classical took over with a short field. It took Classical less than four minutes to punch the ball into the end zone on that drive, with Jeremiah Banto rushing in for a 6-yard score. Pilgrim would block to extra point try, giving the Purple a 13-8 lead with 7:23 left in the first half.

In the waning minutes of the half, the Pats would make another critical mistake, this time with quarterback David McMullen firing a pass to the right that was intercepted by Tutu and returned to Pilgrim’s 37-yard line.

With 29 seconds left in the half, Classical capitalized on that turnover, with Tutu hitting a wide open Banto down the right sideline for a 27-yard touchdown. Clark added the extra point to give Classical a 20-8 edge heading into halftime.

The two teams came out and played to a stalemate in the third quarter, as the offenses had a tough time moving the ball up the field.

In the fourth quarter, however, Classical was able to run away with the game behind two special teams plays.

In the first minute of the fourth quarter, Pilgrim attempted to punt the ball near its own end zone, but Classical’s Samuel Badejo had other ideas. The Purple were able to block the punt and Badejo scooped the ball up off the turf, rumbling in for the short-yardage score.

In the final minute, Pilgrim again chose to punt with the game all but over. Tutu received the kick and weaved his was through a series of Pilgrim players, maneuvering his way into the end zone to put an exclamation point on his team’s win.

The defeat was particularly tough for Pilgrim’s group of seniors, which led the team to its best season in a long time.

“It’s really hard, they thought they could play with this team,” O’Connor said of his seniors. “If we played mistake-free, we would be right in it, but we didn’t. There was a lot of pressure, first time feeling this much pressure. We got down a couple of scores and we’re not used to that after being emotionally drained from last week.”

Fortunately for Pilgrim, its group of seniors will have one more chance to take the field as teammates – on Thursday at Warwick Vets at 10 a.m. in the annual Thanksgiving game.

Although the Pats are no longer in the run for a division title, it won’t be hard to refocus for their game against Vets.

After all, it will be the final game of one of the most storied rivalries in the state.

“I don’t think that’ll be hard to do,” O’Connor said when asked how he’d get his guys back in check for the Thanksgiving game. “The rivalry is good and it’ll be nice to get back out there and just relax. There’s always the pressure to win, but that we can handle. The playoff pressure was brand new.”