The Pilgrim boys’ hockey team held two separate leads on Friday night at Thayer Arena, but a pair of goals late in the third period from East Greenwich’s Max Hagenburg was the difference, as the Avengers defeated the Pats 4-2.

Each team scored two first-period goals, before Pilgrim and East Greenwich started to play more defensively responsible.

Pilgrim senior goaltender Cam Gagnon was tremendous in the second period, turning aside 10 shots, while his counterpart Jake Horoho stopped the eight shots sent his way for East Greenwich to send the game to the third period tied, 2-2.

In the opening minutes of the third period, Gagnon came up big on a Paul Dunwoody wide-open wrister. A few minutes later, Gagnon would make a sprawling save on an East Greenwich power play to keep the score where it was.

“Cam stepped up,” Pilgrim head coach Stephen Henn said. “Our starter was hurt, and Cam did everything we could ask from him. He was awesome tonight. There’s really no other way to put it.”

But not even Gagnon could bail out a defensive lapse with just under five minutes left.

Pilgrim had trouble getting the puck out of its defensive end, and EG made the Pats pay.

Avengers forward John Ferguson won a puck battle on the halfwall and sent a pass out to Hagenburg in the high slot, who fired a shot through a screen that beat Gagnon blocker side to give EG a 3-2 lead.

Hagenburg would ice the game four minutes later with an empty-net goal to push the lead out to 4-2.

Although Pilgrim played a tough team well, the opportunity to get two points was there. To put in an effort like that and not come away with any points is a tough reality.

“We’re proud of the effort, we’re not proud of the outcome,” Henn said. “We can’t be happy with the outcome or else we’re not going to get better. We saw what we’re capable of doing when we’re playing most of the game. We just took our foot off the gas for a little while in the third period and you can’t stop. We had a couple of mental lapses.”

Pilgrim came out of the gates firing in the first period, with Ty Morgan hitting Pat Reilly backdoor with a pass that was one-timed past Horoho to give the Pats a 1-0 lead just 22 seconds into the game.

Liam Strain had a chance to up Pilgrim’s lead a couple of minutes later, but his slap shot from the high slot whistled just wide.

At the 10:56 mark, EG got on the board. Pilgrim lost a battle behind its own net, as the puck leaked out in front to a wide open Lucas Ventura, who one-timed a shot by Gagnon to tie the game at 1.

Pilgrim and EG would again exchange goals before time expired in the first.

With 2:49 to go, Reilly rounded the net and found Strain in front. It took Strain two shots, but his second made its way past Horoho to regain the lead for Pilgrim, 2-1.

That didn’t last long, though.

Just under two minutes later, Ferguson bumped the puck by a pinching defenseman along the right boards, went in all alone and tucked a shot by Gagnon to tie the score at 2.

That’s where the score remained until Hagenburg scored twice in the third period to put the game away.

With the loss, Pilgrim fell to 1-3 in Division II play. It will undoubtedly be ready to play this Saturday, however, as Pilgrim is set to play rival Toll Gate at Thayer at 7:30 p.m.

It’ll surely be another physical, tight-checking game between the Pats and Titans when they meet with two highly-coveted points on the line.

Pilgrim will be looking to build off of its good effort against East Greenwich. However, coming away with anything less than a win is a shortcoming, as the Pats know they’re capable of more.

“We’re proud of the effort, but we’re not satisfied in the outcome because we know we’re better than that,” Henn said.