The Palo Alto High School girls’ water polo team (8-7) claimed an 11-5 win over Los Gatos High School at the Paly pool last Friday.

The Lady Vikes came out hard scoring three goals in the first quarter. Strong defense gave the team many opportunities on the attack.

“Our team defense looked great,” Paly head coach Cory Olcott said. “We did a really nice job pressing and that set up our counterattack.”

The Lady Vikes stayed strong through the next two quarters, bombarding the Los Gatos defense and scoring six goals. Shannon Scheel (’12) led the effort scoring three goals. Haley Conner (’11), Skylar Dorosin (’12) and Paige Devine (’11) contributed two goals each.

“We really came together,” Devine said. “We came out really hard first quarter and we took it to them”.

On the defensive end the Lady Vikes also held firm, shutting down the Los Gatos offense. Los Gatos was held to zero goals until the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter the game became closer when the Lady Vikes’ line-up was switched, and Los Gatos scored five goals.

Assistant coach Kelsey Holshauser attributes the Los Gatos goals to getting lost on defense a few times. She is confident, however, that the mix up is simple to clean up.

Even with the Los Gatos offensive surge in the fourth quarter, the Lady Vikes still slipped in two goals to end the game at 11-5.

“It was good to see that we came out hard this game,” Holshauser said. “I think this was a good game to get back into the groove of things”.

The Lady Vikes will face Menlo-Atherton High School in the Gunn High School Pool this Saturday at 5:00 p.m.

“They are another really good team, so it is going a great test for us,” Olcott said. “It is going to be good prep for CCS.”