The girls volleyball team defeated Mountain View at home on Thursday 3-1 in their third league game.

The game was a chance for Mountain View’s head coach, Dave Winn, to return to the school where he used to coach. Winn was the varsity volleyball head coach at Paly for eight seasons and led them to back-to-back state championships in 2010 and 2011. Mountain View’s JV head coach, Jekara Wilson, has also coached at Paly in the past.

According to middle blocker Ashlyn Callan (‘19), one of Paly’s main focuses for this game was maintaining a positive mindset.

“We went in with a good mentality because our biggest struggle has been having positive energy and going in and believing we can win and I feel like we did pretty good with that,” Callan said.

The first set started out close until Paly started to pull away at 13-7, causing Mountain View to call a timeout. After a few more back-to-back points, Paly pulled away for the last time to win the set 25-13.

The second set was a little bit of a different story. The score was close for the whole set and the two teams stayed within four points of each other the entire time. Mountain View ended up coming out barely ahead and taking the set, 25-23.

The third set started out similar to the second set with Mountain View in the lead until Paly took the lead making it 11-9 and causing Mountain View to call another timeout. After the timeout, Paly won three points in a row causing Mountain View to call another timeout with the score 14-9. After more back-and-forth points, Paly extended their lead to win the set 25-17.

The whole fouth set was reminiscent of the first three sets as the score remained close for the whole set. Paly won the set 25-18 to secure the win.

Callan says they will continue for focus on their positive energy for their games in the future.

The Vikings will compete in a tournament this weekend and will face off against Los Altos away next Tuesday, September 18th at 6:45 pm.