Two weeks ago, Paly’s varsity football team embarrassed Wilcox at the Chargers’ homecoming game.

On Friday, Paly suffered a similar fate when the Vikings went down 31-0 at their own homecoming thanks to a crushing performance by Los Gatos.

"[Los Gatos] wants to physically dominate you," Paly assistant coach Steve Foug said before the game. Unfortunately for Paly, Los Gatos did dominate, the Vikings’ offensive line struggled, and quarterback Nathan Ford had arguably his worst game of the season.

As Paly (now 3-1in league) kicked off to start the game, the Viking’s defense looked strong, stopping Los Gatos’ first drive in five plays. Paly got the ball on its own 23-yard line, gained nine yards, and punted it right back. This time, Los Gatos put a couple of plays together which ended in a 4th down touchdown with less than a yard to go on Paly’s goal line.

Again, Paly got the ball and could not do anything with it. The Vikings punted it back to the eager Los Gatos offense, and on the first play from their own 40 the chargers ran a 60 yard touchdown.

A field goal and two more touchdowns by the Los Gatos offense left the game 31-0 with nearly a minute left on the clock before half time. Nathan Ford and the rest of the discouraged Paly team marched on the field in an attempt to put some points on the board before halftime.

Ford led his team nearly 65 yards, and with 2.6 seconds on the clock, a Charger defensive back interfered with senior wide receiver Matt Wismann, on a play which left Paly one more shot at the end zone. Ford was rushed, and couldn’t find anyone open in the short amount of time he had in the pocket. He was sacked, and walked off the field to the locker room with the rest of the team.

"They were a big, strong fast team, and they wanted it more than us," junior defensive lineman Tim Currie said.

Although Paly’s defense came out of the half ready, the offense was not. Not a point was scored in the second half. "We were careless with the ball the whole game. All of the big plays went their way," Foug said.

"Our team just didn’t put together big plays," said senior Richard Lauman, who came to watch the game. The last quarter of the blowout, all of the intensity which was present earlier, was lost; the Paly stands were quiet.

"We are just going to have to try again next year with this team. We need forget this loss, and focus on next week against Milpitas – a game we should win," Foug said.