Palo Alto High School’s Lady Vikes (35-3-0) maintained their playoff hot streak with a dominating victory over the Menlo – Atherton High School Bears (31-6-0) at home tonight. With this win the Vikings are on their way to their second consecutive state championship appearance.
M-A looked strong, starting off with two strong points back-to-back. However, the Vikings quickly recovered from the Bears’ defense with key digs from Jackie Koenig (’12) and Shelby Knowles (’13). Melanie Wade (’12), a solid blocker all season long, did not disappoint in this first game with her defense, blocking many of Menlo-Atherton’s potential kills. This defense did not go unnoticed by head coach Dave Winn.
” Blocking was great tonight,” Winn said.
Outside hitter Caroline Martin (’12) credits her team’s defense with intense pre-game preparation.
“We watched a lot of film, and we figured out what their strengths were and worked around it, [especially on] defense and passing,” Martin said.
Wade, along with setter Kimmy Whitson (’12) each contributed points, Wade’s in the form of kills and Whitson with her signature, fake-set. These points, combined with help from outside hitters Maddie Kuppe (’12) and Martin, put the Vikings up 12-4. Long rallies enabled M-A to make a five-point comeback, but Paly’s defense remained solid. An ace from Whitson and kills from Martin and Wade gave the Vikings a 17-11 lead. The Bears’ offense gained new life after this deficit, coming up with strong kills and blocks. The score was 18-17 Paly until Wade’s arm whacked the ball downward twice, and Paly regained a four-point lead. Paly’s momentous offense ended game one with a final point by Whitson: Paly 25, M-A 17.
Winn notes that although Menlo Atherton was missing one of its key outside hitters, when his team gets on a roll, they are hard to stop.
“[M-A is] definitely not the same team without one of their players tonight,” Winn said. “That changed their dynamic quite a bit. To their credit, they kept fighting but when we are humming like we did tonight, it’s pretty hard for anyone to beat us.”
Winn’s statement proved true, especially in the second game: the Vikings were up 7-0 off of kills from both Kuppe and Martin. It seemed as though the Bears had no answer for Paly’s defense until Katelyn Doherty (’13) got M-A on the board with a kill. Yet, Paly’s blocks kept them on top by a significant margin of 9-2, thanks to Wade, Whitson, and Becca Raffel (’14). The Vikings’ offense exploded after this defensive surge and Paly went up 18-4. This momentous domination carried Paly to an easy 25-8 victory.
A kill from Kuppe put the Lady Vikes broke the tie that started out the third game. Paly experienced a few close calls on defense from hard hits by M-A’s Doherty but managed to maintain their lead through solid communication. Although the Bears came in within a few points of taking over the lead, a combination of Viking kills and blocks prevented their success. The rest of game three was more of the same: random spurts of Menlo-Atherton energy were not enough, as Paly finished off the match with a 25-15.
Even though Paly’s lead was significant, Martin never gave it a thought until the final point of game three.
” People kept telling us ‘you’re automatically going to win’, but we just went in and [decided] to play our hearts out right here and do the best we can, because we’ve worked really hard this season,” she said.
Palo Alto will make its trip to the State Championships for the second year in a row this Saturday at Concordia University in Irvine. The Vikings will face either Marymount High School or Los Alamitos High School in the finals. A relfective Winn is slightly reluctant to believe that this is his last game with his senior class.
“Don’t get me emotional now,” Winn said. But he was serious about missing his senior squad.
I’m really happy not only that we get to play in the state finals but [also] that I get to coach them for another four days, ” Winn said.
