By ALEX SPONSELLER The Pilgrim boys basketball team fell to visiting Tolman 58-46 on Monday evening.

Although Pilgrim trailed just 24-18 at the halftime break, the Tolman offense would catch fire down the stretch to wear out the Pats.

DJ Sollitto led Pilgrim with 16 points while Danny Halliwell and Colby Barker each put up eight points scored.

“Defensively, not a bad effort. Our goal was to slow down (Tolman’s Isaiah Gois), particularly Danny Halliwell, it was his job to defend him and he did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, the other guy we were focused on was (Maarten Lopes) but we didn’t do a very good job of preventing him from getting to the rim and shooting the three. In the first half, I was pleased with our defense, but in the second half - especially later in the second half - our defense broke down,” said Pilgrim coach Sean Henseler. Lopes went on to score a game-high 21 points for the Tigers.

Henseler has been happy with his club’s defensive performance this season, but is still hoping to see it gain some traction on the offensive end.

“Offensively, we struggle when we are pressured. Our biggest issue this whole season has been turnovers. That is something we need to work on. Right now, we feel that we need to keep teams in the low 40’s to have a good shot at winning,” said Henseler. “Tolman is a good team, they have some great athletes. At the end of the day, we couldn’t put things together enough to overcome their superior athleticism.”

On the bright side, Sollitto continued to play well for the Pats and has quickly become the team’s go-to scorer at the point guard position after not playing last season.

“He is a competitor, he competes every night. We are asking him to play the point which is a position he is not familiar with. He is working hard to not only learn our offenses but also how to run our offenses. I like his game, I like his attitude and I like his compete level. We are going to need him to play good basketball to be the best team that we can be,” said Henseler.

Pilgrim dropped to 1-3 in league play with the loss. The team squared off against West Warwick on the road on Wednesday, but the results were not available at press time.

As the Pats get set to enter the midseason, they are looking to improve and find a rhythm.

“We just need to find some level of consistency. We want to grow, and these guys are working hard to do that,” Henseler said. “If they continue doing what they’re doing, we will be fine come February.”