The Pilgrim boys lacrosse team bounced back from a season opening loss to beat Cranston West 15-1 on Monday to earn its first victory of the spring.

Despite falling behind 1-0 early in the first quarter on a goal from West’s Aidan Fowler, Pilgrim would surge to five straight goals by the end of the period and never looked back as it grabbed the win.

Carter Clifton led the Pats with five goals and an assist while Marcus Walsh added four goals of his own. Pilgrim also got goals from Brett Taylor, Ayden Yehle, Connor Fitzgerald and Logan Fuller in the win. Goalie Christopher Schifino had one save in net.

The Pats were elevated to Division I after reaching the finals in the two seasons they were in DII. Despite losing leading scorers Braxton Bragg, who was the program’s all-time scoring leader, and Ryan Barlow, Pilgrim is confident that it can make a deep run in the state’s toughest division.

“It’s a young group with only two seniors on offense. We lost some leaders, we lost Braxton and Barlow who scored 12 goals a game. It was good to see everyone step up, we got contributions from everybody today,” said Clifton.

“Here at Pilgrim, with Coach (Alex) Gregson and Coach Blake (Simpson), we have a good, set-in-stone system here,” added Walsh. “We keep working and keep producing. We’ve had good players in the past and we’ll continue to have good players. It’s important to make a statement to the rest of the league that we’re here and Pilgrim is going to be a contender this year.”

Pilgrim dropped its opener last week to Portsmouth, so Walsh was excited to see the team get back on track and believes it has all the makings of DI power.

“We took a tough loss (to Portsmouth) and came out here for the rebound to make up for it. We need to keep moving forward. We’re more than well-prepared, we come to practice every day and work hard. We’re a determined team that has what it takes to compete.” 

Cameron MacLeod recorded an assist for West while goalie Sebastian Robbins finished with six saves for the Falcons.

West graduated a large senior core from last season’s team which reached the Division II semifinals. Notable losses were Jack Majcher and Charlie Maguire. Nicholas Scorpio, Joseph Testa, Dylan Cicchitelli, Jacob Case and Dylan Pires are set to take on larger roles as the Falcons look to return to the postseason.