Paly’s Baseball team lost a frustrating game to the Serra Cavaliers by a final score of 6-1.

After getting two quick outs in the top of the first, the Cavaliers went on a two-out rally as they scored 3 runs on 3 hit. Paly’s starting pitcher, Ryan Chang (‘17), struggled to get out of the inning as he also walked a batter.

After a relatively quiet bottom of the first, Serra was at it again scoring another trio of runs on 4 more hits including two doubles. Though no errors had been officially committed, the Vikings defense appeared tense as they struggled to stop the Serra offense.

Facing a large deficit, Paly’s offense stalled in the bottom of the second. In the top of the third, the Vikings put Jake Varner (‘18) in to pitch to replace Chang. Varner went on to have an impressive outing pitching three innings, striking out four, and only allowing two baserunners.

In the bottom of the third the Vikings were able to score what would be the only run of the game on a double by Alec Olmstead (‘16) which scored Max Jung-Goldberg (‘18).

Through the rest of the game, Paly’s lineup continued to struggle to get runners into scoring position. Though the hits were coming, the team just couldn’t string them together to put runs up on the board. Jung-Goldberg, however, had a nice day at the plate going two for four with a run scored.

Jeremy Akioka (‘18) came in to pitch the final two innings in which he put away the Cavaliers rather quietly.

“I think mentally we beat ourselves,” Varner said after the game. “I think that we are better than them though; I think that we have a lot of talent on this team. A lot of hype comes in with the name Serra especially in their lineup. I don’t think they just beat us just by skill.”

“We definitely came out tight,” Riley Schoeben (‘16) said. “We were excited to play a high caliber like this and we came out a little flat but it’s going to prepare us well for the next time we play talent like this. We have to be able to experience experiences like this in order to get better so we are just going to take it like it was, learn from it, and get ready for league.”

The Vikings’ next game will be Wednesday, March 9th, at Cupertino High School starting at 4.