The Paly volleyball team swept the Woodside Wildcats in three sets (25-17, 25-16, 25-15) at their home opener on September 15. Chelsea Fan (‘18) led the team with 11 kills overall, and Katie Passarello (‘17) was close behind with ten.

Coach Jekara Wilson was pleased with her team’s performance.

“I feel really good about the win,” Wilson said. “I thought we played really well.”

The first set started competitively with both teams staying relatively even until the Vikings went on a 10-0 streak to go from tying at 9-9 to leading 19-9. Paly maintained this lead to secure a first set victory, 25-17.

The Vikings were more dominant in the second set, leading by more than five points for the most part and as much as ten at some points. Passarello started the set off with a kill for Paly. Other highlights included aces from both Claire Dennis (‘16) and Jessica Lee (‘17). The set ended with back-to-back kills from Paly.

The third set went back and forth until the Vikings pulled ahead once again. The set, and game, ended with two points from Fan, a kill and a tip, and a final tip from Paly that Woodside was unable to return.

Wilson credited the victory to how hard the Vikings have been working in practice gearing up for the game.

“We worked a lot on serving and passing this past practice,” Wilson said. “I thought that really showed during the match.”

Captain Claire Krugler (‘16) was pleased with the overall result.

“I think we did a really good job,” Krugler said. “This is our first home game so we definitely fed off of the crowd’s energy. We did a good job with serve-receive, better than we have in the past, and [we did a good job of] putting the ball away.”

Krugler believes that communication is something to work on as the team looks toward the rest of the season.

“We have all the skills but [we need to work on] coming together and making sure back row communicates with front row and…communicating where to block, just talking the whole time so that we don’t let balls drop.”

Passarello echoed Krugler’s opinion that there is room to improve with regards to team communication.

“On defense we can be communicating more so there’s a lot less confusion,” Passarello said. “That way we can have more spot-on passes so we can run our plays.”

Next up, Paly takes on Mountain View High School at home on Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 6:45 p.m.