The Pilgrim football team dropped its second straight decision when Ponaganset held on to win 28-21 in last week’s Thursday night matchup.

Ponaganset would mount a 28-13 lead in the third quarter, but the Pats would piece together a drive that resulted in a touchdown pass from Chace Roberts to Justyn Murphy in the fourth, followed by a successful 2-point play to make it 28-21. Cole Bigelli would then block a Chieftain punt which was recovered at the Ponaganset 29-yard line with 12 seconds remaining. The Pilgrim offense would take one last shot at the end zone, but the ball was tossed just a few feet beyond the line as the clock ran out.

The Pilgrim passing offense was productive throughout the night as Roberts threw for over 300 yards and three touchdowns. Jack Coffey hauled in the team’s first two scores and led the way with 127 yards. John Kelly caught the 2-point conversion in the fourth.

Although the Pilgrim offense hummed at times in the loss, it fell victim to three fumbles, including two in the second half that ended opportunities to put points on the board.

It was the second straight game in which the Pats fell by one score, as West Warwick completed a fourth quarter comeback the previous week.

“It happens and we’re a little down right now. It was a tough game, we played well offensively and the defense played great. We had some mishaps, but that happens every time. No one’s offense and defense is going to play perfectly every game. We’re down right now but we’re going to need to bounce back, and I think we will bounce back,” said Roberts after the loss.

Roberts still expects the Pilgrim passing offense to be top-tier moving forward, despite the hiccups.

“We’re very confident. We’ve been slow the last few weeks but tonight we showed what we can do with this passing offense. Our core returns from last season and tonight we showed what we can do. We just need to come out and play with speed. I think once we do that, we’ll be unstoppable in DIII,” Roberts said.

“Every week in this division is going to be a rock fight. When you make mistakes, it’s really going to cost you in the end and that showed today with three fumbles. I think ultimately, we would have had a chance to win that game if we decreased the turnovers, but Ponaganset played a great game, they ran effectively and chewed the clock,” added Pilgrim head coach Blake Simpson. “We’ve seen a bunch of improvement. We saw some holes in their passing defense that we thought we could attack and we did, but the chips just didn’t fall our way.”

Pilgrim fell to 2-2 overall and 1-2 in league play, and will host Narragansett this Friday night. Simpson was encouraged by the team’s play overall, but is looking for more consistency moving forward.

“The way our defense stood on its head the last two possessions, getting the blocked punt, giving us a chance to win, it shows what this defense is capable of doing. We’ve just got to put together four quarters and capitalize on our passing attack more,” Simpson said.