By ALEX SPONSELLER

The Pilgrim boys basketball team held off Cranston West to pick up a big 52-50 win on Monday night as the two clubs continue to battle for playoff positioning in Division II.
Neither team led by more than eight points and each exchanged leads in both halves. Pilgrim lead 43-38 heading into the fourth quarter and West would eventually knot the score in the final five minutes when Adreyan Perez knocked down a pair of threes. Pilgrim would respond as Cole Bigelli scored the go-ahead basket and the Pats racked up points on free throws to edge the Falcons.
Carter Clifton and Dylan Vale led Pilgrim with 13 points and combined for 17 in the third quarter to allow the Pats to lead going into the fourth. Donald Perry led West with 10 while Perez, Kennedy Arias and Jaymien Aponte all scored nine.
Clifton was happy with the team effort in the win and sees the Pats emerging as a true threat in the tough division.
“At this point we’re joining as a group together. We wouldn’t have been able to do that earlier in the season. From our starters to the guys on the bench, we did it together. We needed this one. We just want to go home and clinch the playoffs now,” said Clifton.
Vale also felt that the Pats made a statement with the win and also feels that the team’s chemistry is leading it to the recent success.
“We can compete with anyone in this division. We tried to close out the game, we let them back in but we were still able to close it out. The majority of us have played together since we were young and now it’s translating on the court,” Vale said. “We’re on the right track. It’s huge, it was a playoff atmosphere and gives us a little bit of a feel for the bigger ones coming up.”
Pilgrim keyed in on Aponte and Arias in the paint all night to limit the big time duo.
“Pilgrim is a very well coached team, very disciplined team, good defensively. They had their game plan of limiting our post entries and executed it very well. We didn’t execute, we got a little robotic on offense,” said West coach James Sweeney after the loss.
West is now on a four-game skid and is looking for answers as it gears up for the back half of the regular season.
“There’s definitely a monkey on the back, no doubt about it. Tonight showed that we played with too much pressure on ourselves, too much internal pressure. We usually play like killers, but tonight we hoped things would go well instead of making things happen,” said Sweeney, who is still plenty confident in his core despite the rut. “These kids want it, they’re invested and they want to make it happen. They’re dealing with some adversity, so they just need to have a short-term memory.”