Paly’s boys’ water polo team beat cross-town rival Gunn, 13-5, Wednesday to bring the Vikings’ season record to 4-0.

Paly and Gunn have always been town rivals, which made the Viking’s win even more satisfactory.

"I think the game went well, we were able to take down our all time rival Gunn," sophomore Tim Wenzlau said.

In fact, all of the Paly’s water polo teams played Gunn on Wednesday.

"The highlight had to be going 4-0 for the boys and girls programs in the first Paly v. Gunn games in our new pool," said coach Reid Particelli.

Although the game did not begin as smoothly as the Vikings had hoped.

"I think that we didn’t play that well in the first few minutes," junior Scott Mielke said.

But after senior Paul Reamey scored the first goal for Paly with 5:08 left in the quarter, the Vikings regained their confidence with a tied score. Paly went on to score three more points in the first quarter, the last a back-hand shot by junior Geng Wang.

"We came out a little slow and allowed Gunn to score first," said junior Michael Fortune. "But after their first goal, we scored 6 in a row."

Unfortunately for Fortune, he twisted a muscle in his leg at around half-time.

"Fortune was injured," said senior Adam Whitfield, "so that put us at a disadvantage."

Yet with practice and team communication, the Vikings were able to do even better than pull through and win with a huge lead.

"We worked on becoming more patient on offense and not forcing too many shots early in the shot clock," said Wenzlau.

"We improved on our talking," Whitfield said. "Our team has never been a vocal team, however people stepped up and talked which led to many scoring opportunities."

The Vikings scored many of their points by doing many passes, tiring out the Gunn players. Yet another strategy they used was double-teaming.

"We did well shutting down their top players," said junior Will Simon.

"The most memorable moment was probably when the Gunn players started to get angry and yelled at each other," Fortune said.

During the last quarter, Gunn did their best to gain more points. They won both tip-offs in the second half, yet they were not able to gain enough points to win the game.

"Overall we came out stronger," said Simon. "But we let up a little in the third quarter. We need to learn that when you are winning a game that we need to keep on pressing and scoring more and not let up on defense or offense."

Gunn gained a point through a penalty shot, as well as another point with 2:07 left in quarter.

However in total, the Vikings scored more points in the second half than the Titans. In the last quarter, junior Neal Ketchum faked out Gunn’s goalie and scored another point while the last goal in the game was a Paly point scored by Wenzlau with an assist by junior Geng Wang.

For the fourth time that day, Paly beat Gunn in a water polo game.

"We have pretty much always dominated them [Gunn] even though they are a bigger school," sophomore Mark Higgins said.

The Viking’s next league game is at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Mountain View High School.

"Mountain View is a new team in our league," Mielke said. "So we can only assume that they will come out hard."

"Mountain View is not as strong as Gunn," Fortune said. "But they are a young fast team very much like ourselves. As long as we anticipate their upcoming moves and are aware on offense and defense we should do fine against them."

As always the Vikings will do their best to continue their winning streak and work hard.

"I’m keeping track of all of the other team scores and so far we are the only team that is 2-0," said Simon.

"If water polo were easy," Fortune said, "it would be called football."