Tom Babaian wasn’t impressed with his team’s performance. Paul Cohen wasn’t pleased with how his squad played either. But someone had to come out with a win.

Babaian’s Pelham football team defeated Cohen’s Bow Falcons, 35-20, on Saturday, Oct. 4, in a turnover-plagued contest that helped the Pythons improve to 3-0 on the season.

“We were very sloppy, we didn’t execute well, we didn’t hold the ball well, and playoff teams can’t do that,” Babaian said. “Any time you can come out with a win is good, but we’re going to need to work on things if we want to go deep in the playoffs.”

The two teams combined for 11 turnovers, and while his team’s execution was poor, Cohen liked his team’s attitude.

“We made a lot of mistakes, and obviously they capitalized on those,” Cohen said. “We were undermanned coming in and then lost a few more guys during the game. I was happy to see them battling, and happy to see they refused to quit.”

Pelham recovered a fumble at the Bow 23-yard line with 9:17 remaining in the first quarter and cashed in when quarterback Joseph DeAngelo lobbed a pass to a diving Tim Schaffer in the end zone, giving the Pythons a 7-0 lead.

It looked as if the Pythons might be in position to cruise to the easy victory after Josh Luciano broke free on a 43-yard touchdown scamper with little more than five minutes remaining in the first quarter.

But the Falcons struck back with a big play of their own, as quarterback Austin Hill threw a short pass to wideout Tom Poitras, who did the rest of the work, breaking free and running down the sideline for an 85-yard score.

Although Hill and Poitras did connect for another touchdown with 11 seconds remaining in the contest, Bow never challenged again.

Luciano contributed in nearly every aspect for the Pythons, running for a score, catching another, taking snaps at quarterback, and also intercepting two passes.

Hoping to defend its undefeated state championship, Babaian is fully aware his squad is going to face top efforts from every team it plays the rest of the way.

“We know we’re marked, and everyone wants a piece of us,” he said. “We have got to get better. We aren’t where we want to be right now, but hopefully we can get there.”