The Palo Alto junior varsity baseball team (6-12, 1-1) fell to the Mountain View Spartans (10-11, 2-0) on Wednesday, losing 10-5, after a 5th inning outburst by the Spartans proved too much to rebound from.

Paly jumped out to an early 5-2 lead, behind some spectacular individual offensive plays. In the bottom of the third inning, center fielder Paul Thie (’19) rounded the bases in an unconventional way, scoring Paly’s first run of the game.

Thie singled, advanced to second after using his speed and agility to escape a rundown, moved to third on a wild pickoff throw, and scored on a wild pitch.

The following inning, right fielder Will Robins (’19) ripped a double just inside the third base line, scoring two teammates.

Robins spoke about the team’s hungry mentality coming out of the gate.

“As a whole, our team came out strong and immediately we were aggressive at the plate,” Robins said.

The upward momentum and high spirits that the Vikings had at the beginning of the game was erased in the fifth inning. The Spartans, through a combination of good hitting and nifty baserunning, scored six runs, erasing Paly’s lead and heavily swinging the momentum their way.

Paly pitcher Dean Casey (’20) had pitched four strong innings, but was unable to record an out before being replaced.

“Dean was throwing strikes but they were just hitting them,” Robins said. “He did exactly what he was supposed to do but we made a couple of careless plays and couldn’t answer back with some runs of our own.”

Catcher Ben Civjan (’19) elaborated on the impact the fifth inning had on the game.

“They just kept getting hits and it kind of killed our momentum,” Civjan said. “The inning before that we got the lead and we should have done a better job of shutting them down and keeping it.”

According to Robins and outfielder Galileo Defendi-Cho (’19), the Paly coaches coined the term “inning from hell” to describe the disastrous inning.

After the giving up six runs, the disheartened Vikings were noticeably dejected and couldn’t generate a response, as they were held scoreless the last three innings of the game.

The team has a rematch against Mountain View this Friday, and hopes to improve on the mistakes they made on Wednesday to break out of their four game slide.

Robins believes that the team can bounce back on Friday, but must make key adjustments to get the win.

“If we hit well on Friday and clean up a few mistakes on defense, we will probably get the win.”

The Vikings will take on Mountain View again on Friday at Mountain View High School at 4 p.m.