Yet again, the Cranston West football felt like it let the game get away on Friday night.

This time, it was Barrington that walked off the field at Cranston Stadium with a victory, which the Eagles claimed 28-12, while the Falcons dropped another game in which it was competitive but couldn’t do enough to get the win.

West was bit by long plays, which has been its downfall for most of the year. Barrington’s Jake Gelsomino ran for 231 yards, including three runs of 41 yards or more, in leading the Eagles to the win.

The Falcons dropped to 1-4 in Division I and will need to win their remaining three games to have any chance at a playoff berth. Barrington improved to 3-2.

“I hold myself accountable,” said West head coach Steve Stoehr. “But I have to hold them accountable too. They’ve got to play.”

West was in the game right up until the final whistle. It trailed only 14-12 at half, fell behind by 16 points, but then got the ball down to the goal line in the last two minutes with a chance to make it a one-possession game and then attempt an onside kick.

Instead, the Falcons’ final offensive charge was stopped short, something that was par for the course in a second half that saw them account for only 50 total yards.

West struggled mightily to throw the ball, as quarterback Steven Furtado was just 6-of-18 for 57 yards while being taken down for a loss on seven different passing plays.

“He does some nice things running the ball,” Stoehr said of Furtado. “Hopefully he starts hitting open receivers. On his behalf, I will say this – anytime we needed a big play, the line didn’t do what they were supposed to do. It’s unfortunate.”

The overall running game wasn’t much better, as West ran for 168 yards in the first half – 69 of which came on an Abdiel Mendez touchdown run – but only had 31 yards in the second half. Mendez was the team’s leading rusher with 106 yards on the day, followed by Raekwon Kisilywicz, who ran for 47 yards. Furtado had only six yards on the ground, although he did have an 18-yard touchdown run.

Defensively, while West competed, it gave up touchdowns on Barrington’s first two drives of the second half, making the rest of the game an uphill climb.

On the Eagles’ first possession in the third quarter, they drove 80 yards on nine plays, capped off with a 1-yard touchdown plunge from quarterback Jake Slye.

The next time Barrington got the ball, it picked up big chunks of yardage on two runs from Colin Vatter and then found paydirt on a 41-yard run by Gelsomino. The extra point from Jacob Bonney was good both times, and Barrington led 28-12.

“We had people in place, they just couldn’t make the tackle,” Stoehr said.

West’s drought, meanwhile, continued. It picked up just one first down and ran nine plays on its opening two drives of the second half, resulting in a punt and a turnover on downs on the Barrington 30-yard line.

It punted again on its next drive, threw incomplete on a fake punt the next time it had the ball and then – after recovering a Barrington fumble – punted again.

On its final drive, it advanced all the way down to the Eagles’ 1-yard line, but Furtado’s pass attempt on fourth down fell incomplete.

“We work on (passing) every day,” Stoehr said. “We work on it all the time. It is what it is. We do what we do.”

Barrington jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first half when it scored on its third drive of the game. Gelsomino rumbled for 55 yards on the first two plays of the drive, and a facemask penalty gave Barrington the ball on West’s 15-yard line. On the next play, Vatter pounded it into the end zone.

West struck back on the next drive, with Mendez turning up the middle on a third-and-4 play and going 69 yards for the score. The extra point was no good.

“Abdiel, what a great run that was,” Stoehr said.

Barrington made it 14-6 on its very next possession, as Gelsomino again set up the score, this time with a 57-yard run, and Slye leapt into the end zone from 1-yard out.

The Falcons got their second score of the game in the middle of the second quarter on an 18-yard scamper by Furtado. That made it 14-12 before Barrington seized control for good early in the third quarter.

“There were a lot of good things in the game,” Stoehr said. “I thought the defense played pretty tough, for the most part. A couple big plays, as usual.”

West’s next opponent will be its toughest yet, as it hosts top-ranked, undefeated Bishop Hendricken, the four-time defending Super Bowl champions, on Saturday at 3 p.m. The game is being played Saturday because of Halloween on Friday night.

“They’re licking their chops,” Stoehr said of Hendricken. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll have a gameplan and we’ll be ready.”