The defending Division III champion Pilgrim boys’ basketball team kicked off its quest for a repeat with a 47-43 victory over No. 7-seeded Scituate on Monday night.

The No. 2-seeded Pats were led by 31 combined points from sophomore standouts Tyrone Weeks and Matt Woods. Weeks had 15 points, seven rebounds, four blocks and one steal before fouling out late in the contest. Woods poured in a team-high 16 points, adding five rebounds and one steal.

Woods also held Scituate’s most explosive player, Brian Heston, to only 11 points. Heston averages 18 points per game.

“It was huge that Matt stepped up on the offensive end,” Pilgrim head coach Mike Batalon said. “He also did an outstanding job on Scituate’s leading scorer, Brian Heston.”

After Heston put the Spartans ahead 21-17 with his second long-distance shot of the game late in the first half, the Pats caught fire. They went on a 13-0 run that extended well into the second half, starting with a Weeks layup. Woods then scored the final four Pilgrim points of the first, putting the Pats on top 23-21 at the break.

The momentum kept rolling for Pilgrim, as Weeks collected an offensive board and got a shot to go to kick off the second half. The Pats’ defense kept Scituate off the scoreboard for the first five minutes of the second half, allowing the lead to grow to nine.

Weeks kept taking it to the Spartans down low, earning three points the hard way. Weeks used an up-and-under move to score before going end-to-end for a layup on the next possession, forcing a Spartans timeout.

“Mr. Weeks is a beast underneath,” Scituate head coach Ralph Apici said. “We thought we had a good game plan for him; and for a couple of their perimeter shooters, we shut them down.”

Scituate worked itself back into the game at that point, and used the long ball to do it. Heston drilled a 3-pointer to cut the lead down to 6, and Steve Santanelli dialed in from deep on back-to-back drives to level the score.

The Spartans hit 10 3-pointers on the night, five coming in each half.

“Scituate really is an outside-shooting team and we tried to contest their shots as best we can,” Batalon said. “They were still able to hit a lot, but the strength of their team is their outside shooting.”

Pilgrim senior guard Brandon Lawton answered back with a 3-point shot of his own from the top of the arc to get the Pats back out in front, 33-30. Woods then got a jumper to fall in off the backboard to build a cushion.

Justin Mink drove for a layup to bring the Spartans back within one possession, but Woods responded with a hard take that sent him to the line for an and-1.

Mink, who led Scituate with nine in the second half, was fouled on a make and converted on his free throw to finish the 3-point play to bring Pilgrim’s lead back down to three, 38-35. That was the only free throw Scituate made on the night, as the Spartans went 1-for-12 from the charity stripe. The Pats were 7-for-11.

“I think maybe the moment itself,” Apici said of why the free throws weren’t falling. “Pilgrim’s had a great year. They beat us last year in the Final Four, and I’ve got some kids that returned from last year. It could be anything. Bottom line, they’re 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids, and I’m proud of them.”

Pilgrim kept answering the bell when Scituate closed the gap. After another successful layup on the Scituate end, junior Jadin Genao stepped up for the Pats and made a shot off a pass from Woods to put the Pats up six once again with just over two minutes to go.

Genao, who finished the game with six points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and one steal, had to come up big for the Pats in the absence of 6-foot-5 Zach Johnson. Johnson is sidelined with an ankle injury.

“It definitely hurts our depth,” Batalon said of Johnson’s injury. “We’re not particularly deep to begin with, we had a couple guys foul out, but the guys that played tonight really stepped up.”

M.J. Notorianni’s 3-pointer got the Spartans as close as 43-40, and Heston had a chance to get them closer after getting to the line on Weeks’ fifth foul with 1:45 left. Heston missed both free throws, though, and finished the night 0-for-4 from the stripe.

Woods closed the door on Scituate from there.

He made both ends of a 1-and-1 with 1:42 to go and then got an up-and-under lay-in to go through. The Pats led 47-40 with just 15 seconds left, and despite Notorianni hitting the 10th Scituate 3-pointer, it wasn’t enough time to complete the comeback.

Genao’s defensive board with six seconds left allowed Pilgrim to escape with its slim 47-43 win.

“Salute Pilgrim, they did a great job,” Apici said. “I think we beat ourselves, but I’m proud of the kids.”

The Spartans were locked in from downtown in the first half, as well, and it carried their scoring attack. Santanelli twice put Scituate ahead early on, scoring its first six points.

The Pats had a 13-10 lead after Woods made the front end of a pair of free throws, but again the Spartans found a rhythm from deep. Notorianni hit his first of three from 3-point land, giving his team a 15-13 lead late in the half.

“We shoot at least a half-hour from the perimeter every single day,” Apici said. “We just run multiple perimeter drills to get the kids ready on the breaks.”

Pilgrim senior guard Anthony Stevens tied the game up with his only points of the first half, but Heston briefly took over after that. He broke the tie with a 3-pointer and then gave Scituate its biggest lead of the game before the offense stalled heading into and coming out of halftime.

The Pats will meet with No. 3-seeded Chariho in the semifinals on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. at East Providence with a chance to go to the D-III championship game on the line. The Chargers handed Pilgrim its only D-III loss of the season so far, a 65-48 victory on Feb. 11.

“I think we’re very motivated no matter who our opponent is, but it would be gratifying to be able to beat the team that beat us in the regular season,” Batalon said.