The Portsmouth football team edged visiting Cranston West 20-7 in the Division II Semifinals in a rainy matchup last week.

The two clubs were tied 7-7 heading into the second half, but the Portsmouth rushing attack led by Evan Tullson and Shane Harvey would take control while the Patriot defense came up with some key stops to help propel the team to this weekend’s Super Bowl against St. Ray’s.

The turning point in the contest came in the third quarter when a West punt got caught in the heavy wind and traveled just three yards to set Portsmouth up deep in Falcon territory. The Patriots would capitalize moments later when Tullson rushed for a score to make it 14-7.

Later in the third, West would be caught in the same situation with a punt traveling less than 10 yards, and although the defense would make a stop, the Falcons struggled to regain favorable field position throughout the fourth quarter. Tullson would put the game away when he rushed for another touchdown with 6:10 remaining.

“Portsmouth did a nice job of defending what we were doing and our defense was put in a hole in the third quarter on those two punts. We gave them the short field and a team like that in a semifinal game, it’s all about momentum. It was a great football game but we came out on the bottom half of it,” said West head coach Tom Milewski.

Portsmouth would take the 7-0 lead in the second quarter on a drive that lasted 10 minutes. West received the ball with 2:56 remaining and would drive all the way for a Marcus Chung rushing touchdown to tie it up with 10 seconds left in the half.

“It was great, we had that drive and tied it. It was going to be a game that came down to possessions at the end. We went down on that drive using an up-tempo offense which was something that we had been working on all year. We got to use it. We scored and then it was a new ball game, 7-7 and anyone’s game,” said Milewski.

In the end, Tullson and Harvey were too much as the Falcons struggled to get out of their own half of the field.

“Hats off to them, they did a good job. They kept getting three, four yards a clip. Three, four yards a clip. We couldn’t keep up on defense,” said Milewski.

After two down seasons in which the Falcons failed to reach the playoffs, this year’s team enjoyed a big bounce back and was one of the state’s hottest teams in the final month. Milewski was proud of his club, especially the seniors.

“The loss hurts but we have 0.0 to hang our heads about. This senior group has really improved the last two seasons and has taught the younger kids how to work, how to grind in practice. Hats off to our scout team, they get zero recognition but they work so hard in practice and helped us get to this point,” said Milewski. “I’m proud of the seniors, proud of the team, Portsmouth just made a few more plays than we did.”