On Wednesday afternoon, the Paly baseball team took on the Milpitas Trojans. The team came into the game off of a four-game losing streak.

“We were sick of losing,” Justin Hull (’16) said. “We came out better today and had better energy earlier in the game.”

The game started with Milpitas looking threatening: starting pitcher Isaac Kasevich (’15) walked the first two batters, and a bunt moved them to second and third. Paly refused to give up any early runs as Kasevich struck out the next batter, and Alec Olmstead (’16) made the last out on an easy catch in left field.

Milpitas looked threatening at the top of the second with a runner at second and one out, but a fly-out and a strikeout kept the game tied.

“[Kasevich] really battled after a rough couple innings, but once he settled in it was pretty lights-out,” Owen Plambeck (’16) said.

The Vikings did not get on the board until the second inning with the bases loaded. Albert Han (’16) hit a sac-fly for Jack Andrews (’15) to score. In the third inning, Ben Cleasby (’17) and Hull were on first and second, respectively, when Andrews hit an RBI single to send Cleasby home and Hull to third. Plambeck finished the inning with a two-run RBI double, and the Vikings were up 4-0.

Kasevich continued to hold off the Trojans, but the Vikings kept scoring. The fifth inning ended 7-0 with another two-run RBI by Plambeck.

In the sixth inning, Milpitas managed to get one run off of Kasevich in a one-on, two-out situation.  Kasevich got a last strikeout to end the inning 7-1.

Milpitas had the most success in the seventh inning. Ryan Chang (’17) came in for Kasevich. Despite striking out two of the first three batters, Chang was in a bases-loaded situation. A single put the game at 7-2, and two walks then reduced the Vikings’ lead to 7-4. Niko Lillios (’18) was brought in, and the Vikings got their last out on a fly-out to shortstop.

Plambeck commends the team for being able to score runs today.

“We finally stuck to our approach at the plate instead of getting away from it after we went up a couple runs,” Plambeck said.

Coach Pete Fukuhara noted the team came out with a winning attitude at the beginning of the game.

“I thought our energy was good; the boys came out ready to play,” Fukuhara said. “They were really up for the game. We had a couple days of practice this week that went really well.”

As the team looks forward, Fukuhara wants to continue with the success.

“We’re just going to keep working hard every day, and stick to our end goal,” Fukuhara said. “We’ll just keep out head down and work, and things will go our way.”

With a 6-5 record now in league, the Vikings take on Milpitas again on Friday at 4 p.m. at Milpitas.