The Palo Alto High School girls’ lacrosse team beat Leland 12-3 under the lights at home last night with a shallow bench, overcoming the absences of several players.

“It felt really good,” Kimmie Flather (‘12) said. “The win was great with two subs.”

The Lady Vikes dominated the game from the start, outshooting the Chargers 16-3 in the first half and taking a 10-0 lead into the halftime break. Both Nina (‘13) and Emy Kelty (‘12) contributed multiple goals, including one by E. Kelty where she corralled the ball and ran straight down the field towards the Leland goal directly after a draw win by Flather, and beat the keeper with a quick shot.

Layla Memar (‘12), Kristen DeStefano (‘14), and Flather (‘12) also scored for Paly in the first half.

The action cooled down in the second half as the Lady Vikes took the foot off the gas pedal and worked on possessing the ball for two minutes at a time without shooting.

“We had trouble with that,” Flather said. “It would go out right before the two minutes was up.”

About five minutes into the second half, Leland finally got on the board with a goal. Ten minutes later, the Chargers followed it up with another goal off a penalty to cut the deficit to eight. This second half effort proved to be too little too late, however, as the teams traded goals once more and then Flather found the back of the net with 20 seconds remaining in the game.

Although the Lady Vikes appeared to play a solid game, there are still aspects that the team needs to work on heading into its next few games.

“Just slowing the ball down on attack and trying to keep it for two minutes,” Flather said.

Paly takes the field next on April 11 at home against Saratoga.