The Palo Alto High School boys’ basketball team lost to Cupertino 54-47 at home Friday night after several fourth quarter lead changes.

Paly jumped out to an early 4-0 lead after layups by Israel Hakim (‘12) and Aubrey Dawkins (’13). Cupertino quickly bounced back with an 11-0 run of its own, thanks to nine quick points by shooting guard Gokul Natesan (’12), the defending Santa Clara Valley Athletic League MVP, who finished with 32 points on the night.

The Vikings took a quick timeout down 11-4, and came out with a play resulting in a Hakim layup to cut the deficit to five. With about one minute left in the first quarter, E.J.Floreal (’13) connected with Hakim on a half court alley-oop for a layup. After a missed three at the buzzer, the Vikings were down 15-12 at the break.

In the second quarter, both teams were held scoreless for the first 3:48 of the quarter, as Paly continued to assign a player to aggressively overplay Natesan on defense in an attempt to contain him, which worked up to a certain point. However, he still managed to find enough openings to hit two more three-pointers, bringing him up to 15 points on the half. The Paly transition game, usually a strength for the team, looked a bit out of sync, as the Vikings turned the ball over several times and headed into the locker room  at half time down 27-19.

 The Vikings managed to come out of the break strong, with a quick alley-oop from Mathias Schmutz (’13) to Floreal, but the Pioneers fired back with a 6-0 run of their own. After a clutch three off the bench by Aldis Petriceks (’13) and a pair of transition dunks by Floreal, Paly ended the quarter on a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to one point heading into the fourth.

Early in the fourth quarter, Dawkins hit a pair of free throws to put the Vikings up by one. At that point, however, Natesan took over the game for the Pioneers, hitting three three-pointers and six free throws in the quarter, including a four-point play down the stretch to seal the Cupertino victory.

After a few lead changes early in the quarter, the Vikings struggled to put the ball in the basket during the final few minutes of the game, and were forced to result to fouling at the end. Ultimately, it was not enough, as Natesan’s outside shooting and free throws put the game out of reach.

After the game, coach Adam Sax reflected on the loss.

“I thought Cupertino came out and obviously 42 [Natesan] can really shoot. He got it going for them,” Sax said. “We made a nice comeback in the third and fourth quarter and tied it up at 38 all. There were some nice steals by E.J. and then 42 [Natesan] started hitting threes again.”

Despite the dominant play of Natesan, Sax saw issues with his own team’s performance.

“We didn’t hit many perimeter shots tonight,” Sax said. “If we don’t hit from the outside then its going to be a close game.”

Point guard Alec Wong (‘12) shared Sax’s disappointment in the team’s performance.

“They defenitely shut down our transition game,” Wong said. “Part of that was we weren’t able to rebound defensively. They got a lot of offensive rebounds and tip ups, a lot of second chance points so we couldn’t really run out.”

All night long  Natesan was a match up nightmare for the Vikings. He scored 59% of Cupertino’s points as the Vikings struggled to find a way to stop him.

“We’ve been preparing for Paly since Saturday,” Natesan said. “For the first few days our coach just put us through a lot of conditioning drills getting ready for them, because the last time that we played them we up after three quarters but we just lost gas at the end.”

Natesan also commented on his team’s defensive strategy going into the game facing a Paly team that was averaging 61 points per game.

“You can prepare for them but you just got to limit them,” Natesan said. “They got Aubrey, E.J. and Israel who are all fantastic players. We just had to contain them and make sure that they didn’t do as much damage.”

The Cupertino approach proved effective as they held the Vikings to their second lowest scoring game of the season.

The Vikings however, are still tied for the lead in their league. They control their own destiny and if they win their last three games can bring home a league championship. Paly next takes the court against Burlingame.