The Vikings crushed the Saratoga Falcons 15-6 at home on Tuesday night. The game started rapidly with a goal from Allie Peery (‘15) for the Vikings in the first two minutes. Saratoga was quick to follow, scoring a goal less than two minutes after that. Paly took the lead once again after scoring three goals in the span of three minutes, two more by Peery and one by Paige Bara (‘15).

The Vikings held on to the lead for the rest of the half, with each team scoring three more goals, making the halftime score 7-4.

Peery scored six of the seven goals in the first half for Paly, and coach Jamie Nesbitt believed that Peery played an important role in the game.

“Allie Peery really stood out in the beginning of the game,” Nesbitt said.

Additionally, Nesbitt believed Liana Pickrell (‘15) had a strong performance and aided the team on offense.

“Liana also had a breakout game and just [handled] the ball and [took] some beautiful shots,” Nesbitt said.

Pickrell scored three goals in total for the night. She made her first goal five minutes into the second half and seconds later she scored again with a hard-driven shot, low to the ground. She scored yet again a few minutes later, bringing the score to 11-4 with less than 12 minutes remaining in the half. In addition to Pickrell’s three goals, several other players contributed goals for the Vikings.

Moments after taking and winning the draw-control, or face-off,  against a Saratoga player, Amalia Roth (‘15) scored for the Vikings. Lauren Gargiulo (’15) scored soon after with 10 minutes left in the game.

Saratoga bounced back and was able to score again when Paly fouled a player and they received a free shot.

Five minutes later, Paly scored again when Holly Tumminaro (‘16) hit the back of the net and made the score 14-5.

Again, Saratoga fought back and managed to get another goal with only 1:36 remaining on the clock.

Paly was quick to respond with a goal from Kylie Callan (‘16) just thirty seconds later, making the final score 15-6.

Overall, the Vikings believed that they played well and were able to take charge the game.

“I think we played as a team and we played a complete game start to finish,” Nesbitt said. “There were kind of little momentum shifts, but we took control of them pretty immediately.”

Peery agreed with Nesbitt and thought that doing their plays helped them score more goals.

“I think that the team played really well,” Peery said. “At first we had a rough start; it felt like the game was really close and we had a hard time getting the draw controls , but then once we had those under control we were able to settle it on attack and get a few goals in. In the second half we ran a lot of plays that we haven’t been doing, which I think threw off the defense a little bit.”

For the future, Nesbitt thinks the team needs to be more prepared to face teams that can match their speed.

“I think we weren’t really ready for their speed and we are a pretty fast team and so we aren’t always ready for teams that can match our speed,” Nesbitt said. “So I think that is definitely something we have to work on.”

In addition to speed, Peery believes the team needs to work on getting the ball from the defense to the offence quicker.

“As a team I think that we need to improve on cleaner transitions and getting the ball from defense to attack faster, instead of dropping it and turning it over, just getting it from one side to the other.”

The Vikings’ next game is at Los Gatos on Thursday at 7 p.m.