The Toll Gate football team fired on all cylinders on Saturday afternoon and cruised to a big 26-8 win over host Hope.

The Titans would get a pair of touchdowns from both Greyson Pasquina and Anthony Shaw to secure the win. After a rocky start to the season, and losing three consecutive matchups, Toll Gate has now won two games in as many weeks and has jumped back into the playoff conversation.

“We had a couple of losses so winning against Scituate helped, then this win. Now we’re banged up but we have a bye week which will help. We’ll get everyone back when we face Tiverton and we need to beat Tiverton to get the fourth seed (in the playoffs). We also have Exeter-West Greenwich, if we beat both we’ll get the third seed. The bye came at the right time, we have a lot of guys banged up,” said Toll Gate head coach Jim Stringfellow.

The Titans had high expectations entering 2018. Although there was roster turnover over the offseason, the Titans felt confident that they would be able to make another trip to the playoffs after making their first postseason appearance in almost a decade last year. Toll Gate has been clicking in all three phases as of late, especially on the defensive side of the ball. The Titans have allowed a combined 16 points in their past two wins.

“We’ve finally come together as a team. We made some adjustments, nothing major, but I think they have bought into our system. They started feeling it and we played well. They were excited,” said Stringfellow.

Balancing a bye week is always challenging for teams. Between allowing extra time for rest and using the spare time to work on the game plan, Stringfellow and his staff are prepared to make the most of their time off in both areas as the Titans’ two most important games of the season lie ahead.

“On the one side it’s good to have the bye week since we are banged up but on the other side it’s tough because it’s a momentum killer, we have nobody to face. The biggest thing is getting them back healthy. It’ll be a tough week of practice since they don’t have anybody and then we need to swing them around to get them ready for Tiverton,” said Stringfellow. “(Tiverton) is a big, fast team but I think we can hold our own against them. This week is going to be about resting up and then we’ll start game planning next week.”