The Pilgrim girls’ lacrosse team sat atop the Division III standings throughout the entirety of the spring, so it was only fitting that the Pats were raising the championship plaque on Saturday at Brown University.

After falling in a 3-0 hole against Chariho, Pilgrim powered back to take a commanding lead in the second half, en route to an 11-8 victory, marking the first lacrosse title in the program’s six-year history.

The win put an emphatic close on a 17-0 season for Pilgrim.

“We had to survive some spurts that they had, [Chariho] is a tough, tough team,” Pilgrim head coach Tom Flanders said. “The game is full of droughts and floods, and we knew we had to battle. We had to fight through the droughts – whether it be the calls, whether it be the draws, whether it be the possession. We had to fight through those things, keep our mouths shut and stay focused on the prize. They did that, they listened and they executed. I couldn’t be prouder of the team – 17-0, perfect season.”

The Pats and Chargers played to a 6-6 draw in the first half, and it didn’t take Chariho long to gain a lead out of the break.

Just over two minutes in, Brianna Williams gave the Chargers a 7-6 lead after a tremendous individual effort, eluding several defenders before finding the back of the net.

But Kendra Tantimonico would tie it up one minute, 10 seconds later, before giving Pilgrim the lead for good off of a free shot at 5:30 of the second half.

Chariho had a prime opportunity to tie the game shortly after Tantimonico’s second tally of the half, but Pilgrim goalkeeper Paula Cavanagh came up huge on a point-blank shot from Madeline Potts.

From there, Pilgrim took complete control.

Alexia Martins scored her lone goal of the game at 8:05 of the half, as she finished off a chance from in close with an assist going to Hannah Johnson.

After that, the Pats decided to slow things down and drain some time off the clock.

With Chariho’s defense visibly tiring from a lengthy Pilgrim possession, Hannah Page capitalized, as she drove into the teeth of the defense and scored to make it 10-7.

Page then retrieved a loose ball on the ensuing faceoff, allowing Pilgrim to trim down the clock even more.

Johnson added an insurance tally at 14:37 to increase the lead to four, 11-7, after Sophia DeLuca found Johnson all alone in front.

Megan Kirby added a late goal for Chariho, but its deficit was insurmountable.

However, it was all Chariho to start the first half.

Kirby scored in the opening minute for the Chargers and, after a few back-and-forth minutes, Isabella Rinne and Alexa Bobbin each found the net over a 36-second span to give Chariho a 3-0 lead out of the gate.

After Bobbin’s goal, Flanders called a timeout to settle his team down and provide some words of encouragement.

“We were down 3-0, and then we called the timeout and regrouped a little bit,” Flanders said. “I think there were some nerves to start – we weren’t taking care of the ball. I just stressed to them to stay calm and remember the fundamentals. I told them that ‘This isn’t wrestling or track, you have a whole team out there. When you’re down, they need to pick you up.’ We did that with positive communication.”

“He just said that we got our jitters out, and he wanted us to play our game,” Tantimonico said on Flanders’ message during the timeout. “We just needed to want it more, and we did.”

That message resonated with Tantimonico, whose play carried Pilgrim in the first half. She recorded a hat trick over those first 25 minutes, and a game-high five goals on the afternoon.

“She’s a huge pressure player, she loves this stuff,” Flanders said of Tantimonico. “She’s a gamer and that’s the way it is. When she scored the first goal, I knew it was going to be a day like that. She gets that way and it’s almost like she’s possessed. She’s dynamite.”

Pilgrim responded with a 3-0 run of its own to tie the game, with Page accounting for the first goal and Tantimonico accounting for the second and third.

From there, Pilgrim and Chariho would trade goals for the remainder of the half.

Molly Lynch, Johnson and Tantimonico scored for Pilgrim over the final seven minutes of the half, while Chariho got goals from Rinne, Williams and Mason Jones, as the two teams went into the half knotted at 6.

The better team would surface in the second half, though, with the top-seeded Pats taking a stranglehold on the title game.

When all was said and done, senior-laden Pilgrim was the last team standing.

After dropping two title games over the program’s first five seasons, it was certainly nice to get the first championship out of the way.

Flanders was happy that his senior class this season was the class that won the first title, as he’s been with a lot of those girls over the past four years, through both the lacrosse and soccer seasons.

“It’s a very special class,” Flanders said. “They’ve been with me since we really started coming on strong. They were freshmen when we made our first final. We didn’t do so well in that one, but they came out on top today. So, we started here and finished here, but on a lot better note.”