After a quick lead, the Palo Alto High School girls’ lacrosse team progresses to the playoff championship after beating Los Gatos, 15-9, today at home.
The Lady Vikes jumped ahead right in the beginning when they they controlled the first few draws. Off the draw Leigh Dairaghi (’11), Kimmie Flather (’12) and Charlotte Biffar (’13) all had goals putting the Lady Vikes up 3-0 within the first 90 seconds..
“[My team is just] that good and they have that ability to [score three goals so quickly] and we have the speed to do it,” head coach Jamie Nesbitt said. “It’s them believing they can do it and they knew we could do it.”
Paly strengthened its lead, scoring five more goals to Los Gatos’ one, to make the score 8-1. With less than two minutes remaining in the half, however, the Lady Vikes loosened their grip, allowing the Wildcats to sneak in two more goals and decrease the gap, making the score 8-3 to close the half.
Going into the second half ahead by five, Paly struggled to score two goals to Los Gatos’ six. With only a two point lead, attack Charlotte Biffar (’13) had two consecutive goals off of fast breaks to give the momentum back to the Lady Vikes. From there on out, Paly sealed its victory with three combined goals from Nina Kelty (’13) and Layla Memar (’12).
“When Gatos started closing in on us, we knew that we had to change something that we were doing,” Memar said. “It just came down to us focusing and working together and we definetaly pulled through at the end.”
Finishing with a 15-9 lead, the Lady Vikes were proud of their performance today in the semi-finals, but they know they need to work on tightening up their errors.
“I think it was pretty obvious that once we got it to the attack, we were doing really well up there but it was kind of the in between, so we need to be a little bit smarter about it,” Nesbitt said. “When we’re tired still taking care about it and not letting our tiredness get effect how we throw or our decision making.”
The Lady Vikes will face either Leland or St. Francis High School on Saturday at Woodside High School at 11 am in a run to protect their league crown, which they won last year.
“We’re coming out with a lot of momentum so I have high hopes for Saturday,” Memar said.
