The Palo Alto Vikings’ junior varsity water polo girls lost 2-0 to the Mitty Monarchs Friday in the Palo Alto Invitational opener, Paly’s first game of the regular season. While the Vikings kept Mitty off the scoreboard for the entire second half, two early goals and a stagnant Paly offense led to a loss.

The Vikings covered Mitty tightly from the opening sprint, but Paly was hesitant to pass the ball, moving the ball to the Monarchs’ side of the pool less than ten times in the first half. After Mitty scored in the first quarter, Paly made several fouls trying to catch up. Mitty used the free passes to bring the ball close to the Paly cage several times and scored its final goal with: 54 remaining in the first half.

“Mitty played well,” Palo Alto coach Cory Olcott said, “and we just didn’t make our moves to keep up with them.”

Penalties on offense remained a problem for the Vikings, who put few second half drives into Mitty territory. Paly sophomore fielder Kailey Flather was even ejected with 2:52 remaining the third quarter for hitting a Mitty passer.

On the defensive side, the Vikings never allowed Mitty to score in the second half, even though the Monarchs took several drives into Paly territory. Olcott said that sophomore goalie June Afshar, who made saves on a dozen Mitty shots, played the biggest role in keeping Mitty within reach for the offense.

“June really played an excellent game,” Olcott said of Paly’s goalie, who made four saves in the final quarter alone.

The Vikings played three more games within the ‘B’ division of the invitational Saturday and brought their record to 2-2. The Vikings lost the first Saturday game to the Menlo-Atherton Bears 6-2, but evened their record in afternoon matches with an 8-0 win over the Menlo School and a 7-1 victory over St. Francis in one of the invitational’s playoff games.