In a battle between the the top two teams in the league, Girls’ soccer fell to Mountain View by the score of 2-0 on Friday afternoon. This was the Vikings’ first loss of the season.

The game started out fairly even, with each team controlling possession for a little bit with neither side creating any clear chances.

After about 10 minutes went by, Mountain View created their first chance of the game and put it in the back of the net to give them a 1-0 lead.

Later in the half, Mountain View would score their second goal following a miscue from Paly goalkeeper Linnea Carlstrom (‘16). Although the initial attempt was cleared off the line by Talia Malchin (‘17), nothing could be done about the rebound and Mountain View would lead 2-0 going into halftime.

The Vikings started out the second half strong, showing a lot more going forward in hopes of getting back into the game. However, less than 10 minutes into the half Jacey Pederson (‘16) was forced to leave the game due to an injury.

“We put more forwards up front [to start the second half] and then once that happened, the forward who went up front got hurt,” head coach Kurt Devlin said. ”That was our adjustment, to go all-out attack in the second half and when the injuries came, that made it that much more difficult.”

After the injury to Pederson, the Vikings struggled to create many chances and despite not letting Mountain View score again, they couldn’t get any goals of their own.

Despite suffering their first defeat of the season, the Vikings will continue to look forward.

“There are a lot of things still to play for, we just need to do the little things a bit better,” Devlin said. “Better clearances, get to the ball sooner and I felt they outfought us sometimes in the midfield, especially in the first half. The second half was better, but first half they definitely had the game.”

The team will hope to move on from this defeat in their next game on Wednesday 2/10 at Saratoga.