Cranston East was trying to do something on Monday that no other team has been able to do this season – beat North Providence.

And for a majority of the game, it looked as if the ’Bolts would be the first team to knock off the Cougars.

But NP scraped two runs late behind a sixth-inning rally and a pair of East errors in the seventh to walk off, as the ’Bolts dropped a heartbreaker, 2-1.

An RBI groundout by Latarra Harris gave East an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, and that’s where the game remained until the bottom half of the sixth.

With the bases loaded, Kelsi Gunarathne delivered a one-out single up the middle that was knocked down by Amanda Rosa at second, but there was no play to be made, as Kelsey Burgess came home from third to tie the game.

After the ’Bolts were quickly retired in the top half of the seventh, the ball continued to bounce NP’s way.

East pitcher Paula Frost induced a ground ball from Kayla Prior to start the inning, but the dribbler to third was misplayed, allowing Prior to reach safely.

Things looked to be going south quickly for East, but Frost buckled down and continued to toss quality strikes, forcing the next two hitters to groundout.

That set up a two-out situation with Prior on third.

Much like the previous two hitters, Frost induced a groundball which looked to be the third out. Rosa fielded the ball and made a good throw over to first, but the throw was mishandled at first, allowing the winning run to score from third.

The pair of mishaps spoiled an outstanding pitching performance from Frost, who allowed just one earned run over 6.2 innings of work.

After getting roughed up less than two weeks ago against that same Cougars’ team, Frost came back and gave her team the high caliber performance that it needed.

“She’s a warrior and she battled today,” East head coach PJ Bessette said of his senior pitcher. “She knew that she didn’t have her best game against them last time, and she responded. I’ve leaned on her for four years and leaned on her again today and she came through.”

At the end of the day, the end result was disappointing for the ‘Bolts, who are now 9-4.

Not many teams have played with NP this season, and East had it on the ropes.

“It’s frustrating because we were right there and had them in extra innings,” Bessette said. “But you can’t fault [anybody].”

Frost struck out five in the loss, but was also aided by a strong defense, which was highlighted by Alexa St. Angelo at shortstop.

St. Angelo made several plays ranging in both directions to assist in keeping the Cougars off of the scoreboard in the early innings.

In the other dugout, NP pitcher Arielle Lacroix deserved a victory just as much as Frost did, allowing just two hits over seven frames. The only blemish came in that second inning after a leadoff double by catcher Brittany Rice.

All in all, Bessette didn’t have many complaints. He acknowledged that his squad could’ve handled the bats better, but other than that, he thought that they did enough to win.

“Defensively, we were really good today – we were making web gems all over the place,” Bessette said. “Both teams played really good games.”

Even with the loss, East is building up steam heading into the playoffs, winning its last two games before nearly knocking off the unbeaten on Monday.

The ’Bolts have three games left for the season – the first of which came on Wednesday against one-win Classical.

They will then play Pilgrim at Winslow Park on Tuesday at 3:45 p.m.

East let a prime opportunity slip through its fingers on Monday, but if it wants to win a championship this season, there’s no doubt that it will see NP again deep in the playoffs.

It’s confident that the result will be different the next time around.

“I told them that we’ll see them again in the playoffs and beat them,” Bessette said.