In its second game in the Central Coast Section tournament, the Palo Alto High School boys’ soccer team fell to the first place seed, the Alisal Trojans.

Although the Vikings defeated the Trojans in a preseason tournament championship game in December, they could not hold back Alisal today.

Eight minutes after the starting whistle, Alisal scored on Paly keeper Tony Maharaj (’14) off a corner kick header. Alisal scored again off a breakaway midway through the half. Even though Paly had a few close opportunities to score, the Trojans continued to control the ball game for the rest of the half. Alisal dominated the first half scoring two more goals, making the score 4-0 at half time.

“It was a very sad first half,” captain Kirby Gee (’13) said. “We really wanted to start off strong, obviously that didn’t happen.”

Five minutes into the second half, Gee scored off his corner kick, and Paly seemed to pick up some momentum. The second half remained generally equal between the two teams, with many close goals from forward Chris Meredith (’13).

“If there is anything positive about this game, I think it is the second half,” Gee said.

Reflecting on the boys’ winning season, Gee believes that the achievement of going from zero to 14 wins in two seasons is really special.

“[It’s been an] awesome season,” Gee said. “I can’t believe how far we’ve come from last year when we didn’t win a single game. This year we made it to CCS and got into the Quarterfinals, we beat Gunn, just all these amazing accomplishments. I couldn’t be happier with this season.”

Coach Don Briggs agrees with Gee, and finds that one of the most important accomplishments is that the team will be moving up to the De Anza League next year.

“It makes it especially enjoyable that everyone who played on the team last year came back this year,” Briggs said. “So it was the same group to go from no wins to all of a sudden have 14 wins, and getting back up in the De Anza league, it’s really nice for these guys.”