The Palo Alto High School girls’ water polo team (14-11) defeated Santa Teresa High School (12-15), 10-2, Wednesday night at the Paly pool in the first round of Central Coast Section playoffs.

Driver Skylar Dorosin (’12) opened the game by scoring her first goal within 30 seconds. Her team continued to pull ahead, finishing the first half with a 4-0 lead.

Dorosin led the Lady Vikes’ attack once again, scoring five goals. Additionally, Anna Glaves (‘10), Katie Maser (’10), Haley Connor (’10) and Paige Devine (’10) each added one goal to push the Lady Vikes past Santa Teresa.

Despite the strong start, the Lady Vikes hit a rough patch in the middle of the game.

“We came out really strong, [but] got us into a little slump in the middle.” Devine said.

Although the Lady Vikes maintained their lead throughout the game, head coach Cory Olcott did not characterize the game as his team’s best and thinks the girls could work on shooting.

“Today we played fine.” Olcott said. “W

e just didn’t put shots away. We executed a lot of stuff well; we just need to finish.”

Paly assistant coach Kelsey Holshauser viewed the game as a good opportunity to work on improving for the rest of CCS.

“I think it was good to have an opening game where we could work on different defenses and work on different offenses and really prepare ourselves for moving forward,” Holshauser said.

Next the Lady Vikes will face rival Gunn High School (22-5) at 5:50 p.m. on Nov. 13 at Lynbrook High School in the CCS quarterfinals. The Lady Vikes beat Gunn two weeks ago, but lost to the Titans earlier in the season.

Santa Teresa’s head coach Ben Murray thinks the match up will be closely contested.

“I think that should be a really good game,” Murray said. “I think Gunn might be faster, but I think Paly might know the game better.”

The team is confident going into the rest of CCS.

“It is one step at a time,” Holshauser said. “The next step is going to be Gunn.”