Paly girls water polo defeated Lynbrook Thursday evening 14-1, a league match against a lately struggling team in the league.

Air quality issues over the past 3 days caused concern for the athletes, as generally when the air quality is over 100 school sports matches are not allowed to continue for safety concerns of the players.

Recent games on Tuesday were canceled for these reasons, and uncertainty over whether or not the game would happen wasn’t uncommon. 

“Even though the air quality made it hard to breathe, the team showed great resilience and we had a lot of fun,” junior Sophia Ahn said.

The air quality problem mixed with Los Altos girls’ forfeiting and eventually un-forfeiting for unknown reasons has caused an eventful week for the Vikings heading into this match. 

“I think we were just hoping to improve from our last game and apply our skills,” freshman Sabrina Meyers said.

Additionally, Paly was also going into the match without some players usually on the roster. 

“We went into the game knowing we were going to have to work hard and just try our best especially because we were missing a few players,” sophomore Maeve Herbert-Paz said.

Some believed the low amount of substitutes mixed with poor air quality would cause early exhaustion of the team. Ultimately, the Vikings took an early dominant lead in the first quarter and ended up winning 14-1 with a smooth performance.