The Palo Alto High School girls’ varsity soccer team remained undefeated in league play Friday after romping the Fremont Firebirds 8-1. This marked Paly’s highest scoring effort of the season.
“[We] did real well,” Paly assistant coach Eric Seedman said after the game. “That was probably the most complete game that [we’ve] played this season.”
The Vikings started the game out with a high scoring first half, finding four of their goals within the first 20 minutes of the game. To start out the game, midfielder Megan Tall (’14) put the Vikings on the board first with a firm shot from within the six yard box in the first five minutes of the game.
The Firebirds would then come back to tie the game at 1-1 as Firebird forward Nicole Henry scored immediately off the ensuing faceoff.
This would be the only score for the Firebirds as the Viking defense, led by goalkeeper Erin Chang, had its way the rest of the contest. Only allowing five shots on goal, Paly’s D helped the high scoring offense increase the margin in the first half.
Minutes later, midfielder Alys Olmstead (’16) helped give the Vikings the lead once more. Midfielder Katie Foug (’15) would join Olmstead as she scored two consecutive goals, increasingly Paly’s advantage to 4-1. With only five and a half minutes remaining in the half, Tall found the back of the net once more to give the Vikings a comfortable lead of 5-1 at half.
At the start of the second half, the Vikings would continue their highly productive offense as forward Jacey Pederson (’16) smashed the ball into the goal giving Paly a 6-1 lead.
Forward Heidi Moeser (’16) would then finish off the game, scoring the Vikings’ last two goals, allowing Paly to walk away with a decisive victory.
“There were a lot of really good performances,” Seedman said. “People just stepped up to a level that they are usually not quite at.”
Tall, who finished the game with two goals, felt her team played extremely well.
“We played awesome,” Tall said. “We connected on all our passes and didn’t let the other team score.”
Foug agreed with Tall and thought the team’s performance was great.
“As a team I thought we were connecting a lot and had good chemistry,” Foug said. “We finally started putting away some goals.”
As the Vikings put away one of the most anticipated games of the season, Seedman looks forward to more success in the games to come.
“We’re positioned pretty well,” Seedman said. “The three games we have next week will get us through the first half of the season and we fully expect to win all of those.”
The Vikings will travel to take on the Wilcox Chargers this Monday.
