By ALEX SPONSELLER The Pilgrim boys and girls soccer teams each won their quarterfinals matchups earlier this week, with the boys upsetting top-seeded Lincoln 1-0 and the girls beating Cranston West 4-1.

Both Lincoln and Pilgrim exhcanged shots throguhotut the first half, and Pilgrim nearly took an early lead when a deflected ball seemingly crossed the line into the goal. However, the refs ruled otherwise and the two teams entered the second half scoreless.

Pilgrim began taking over midway through the second half and pressed the Lincoln defense. Finally, the Pats would break through with 22:47 remaining in regulation on a goal from Jacob Holland to take the 1-0 lead.

Although the Lions continued to fight back throughout the final minutes, the Pilgrim defense would hang tough and close out the win to earn a semifinals berth.

“It was an intense atmosphere, you really have to be on top of your game. It feels different, you need to play as a team and play harder. It was a nice shot, but I couldn’t have done it without those guys. It was a nice effort as a team, we kept it in the corner, there was good pressure from Zach (DeCorpo) and Paulo (Frias) in the box. The ball bounced out, I saw it and let it rip,” said Holland of his goal.

Despite an uneven start to this season, the Pats have caught fire in their last few games and have reemerged as contenders. Holland felt that the team’s focus has led to it turning things around.

“We were pretty confident in ourselves, we felt that they may have underestimated us a little bit. We just need to focus on ourselves and our game and keep going,” said Holland. “We just really started to think about what we could work on and improve on. Early on, we were focused on outside things, but once we began to focus more on ourselves on the inside as a team we got better.”

The Lady Pats jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first half and would roll to three more goals to cruise past the visiting Falcons on Tuesday.

Alanna Coffie scored a hat trick for the Pats while Gillian Brown added another score. Sarah Lynch chipped in two assists while Lily Brown added another. Keeper Haylee Marcotte finished with four saves in net.

West’s lone goal came from Emily Webb and was assisted by Julia Robbins. Carmyn Acarregui racked up nine stops in net for the Falcons.

The Pats will now take on Smithfield on Thursday evening at Vets with the winner heading to Sunday’s state championship.