Girls’ volleyball defeated by Saint Francis

Kaahini Jain, News Editor
September 13, 2019

The Viking girls’ volleyball struggled against Saint Francis on Tuesday night, ending with a 3-2 loss. “I think the team needs to improve how we approach the game,” junior setter Kylie Mies said. “We should approach it with full focus, and having losing not in our minds, even if it’s a difficult team like Saint Francis.” Photo: Kaahini Jain

After a close game with many fans on the edge of their seats, the Palo Alto High School girls’ volleyball team (3-4) lost to Saint Francis (14-0), 3-2, Tuesday night at Paly.

The first set left Paly fans hopeful as the girls led 25-15, with Paly scoring in the first minute. Senior captain Amelia Gibbs scored the 25th point in the set, sending fans and teammates cheering. 

“I really thought we did a good job in the beginning of the game shutting down their best hitter,” Senior captain Grace Thayer said.

During the second set, the score remained close throughout. Saint Francis took the win by a narrow two points at 25-23. 

The third resulted in a win for Paly 25-18. According to junior setter Kylie Mies, many players on the team are trying out new positions this year.

Senior middle blocker and captain Amelia Gibbs and junior middle blocker and opposing position Trisha Razdan go in for a block against Saint Francis. Gibbs had a total of 14 kills during the game on Tuesday night. Photo: Kaahini Jain

“We are just starting to adapt to that,” Mies said.  “But, I know that in the future, our players will continue to feel more comfortable in these new positions and start to get some big swings and kills.”

The last two sets were also victories for Saint Francis, the fourth ending with a score of 25-22 and the fifth with a Saint Francis lead of 15-8.

“We struggled a lot with letting up and giving [the other] team the win after we had played an entire set with the lead,” Thayer said. “It’s mentally really frustrating to be in the game and just see them slowly catching up … and I know a lot of girls felt the same.”

According to Thayer, the team beat Saint Francis last year in CCS, so it was expected that Saint Francis would come back stronger this year.

Thayer said, “Like our coach always says, it’s a bad thing but a good thing to know that all we have to do is clean up our game and we should be able to kill these teams [that] we lose to by a few points.” 

The Vikings’ next game is against Monta Vista (3-5) on Sept. 17 at Monta Vista.