The Lady Vikes water polo lost in an exciting match against the Los Altos Eagles earlier today. The team has been preparing for this game since they took a hard loss when they played them three weeks ago.

“Last time we played this team it was a pretty tough loss, we lost by a lot more,” goalie Esme Stotland (19’) said. “I think this time we just came out strong because we were ready to fight.”

It was an extremely close game, the teams were tied for the majority of the first half. Then the Eagles got ahead by the end of the half, only for the Vikes to catch up again and tie the game 6-6 halfway through the third quarter.

Unfortunately, Los Altos scored 3 goals in the third and fourth quarters that lead to their victory.

The girls fought hard throughout the whole game, which supposedly caught the Eagles off guard according to some Paly players.

“We definitely were competition to them, and they were not expecting that,” center Sophie Frick (18’) said.

Frick contributed 2 crucial goals in this game and helped the Vikings to continue to challenge the opponent.

Since their last match against Los Altos, the team has been training to improve their game. The hard work the girls have been putting in was very apparent in the game.

Not only have they been training harder, but they also set certain goals and targets for this specific match.

“Their number one player is number 9 so one of our goals was to just stay on her,” Frick said. “We also wanted to work on different defensive skills like dropping, which we succeeded in, but we still need more work.”

The girls’ water polo team overall showed many improvements over a short amount of time, and they look forward to seeing how they stack up against their hardest opponents the second time around, like Gunn High School on the fifth of October.