The Palo Alto lacrosse team closed its season with a heartbreaking 7-4 loss to the Burlingame Panthers Friday afternoon.
The Panthers crushed the Vikings, 15-3, in the two teams’ first match against each other earlier on in the season, but that would not be the case the second time around, as the Vikings were able to close in on the Panthers’ overall lead.
“The game was a testament to how much we improved over this season,”
junior Helene Zahoudanis said.
The Panthers came out on the attack early on with goals by sophomores Audrey Pratt and Rebecca Belding.
The Vikings responded with an offensive run of their own, initiated by senior Kati Dahm, to put Paly on the board. Sophomore Brianna Boyd contributed another Paly goal less than one minute later to knot the game, 2-2.
“This was a great last game for us; we really kept up the intensity throughout the entire game,” Dahm, the sole senior of the team, said.
Dahm was able to give the Vikings a 3-2 lead with 49 seconds remaining in the first half.
“The keys for us early on were just being aggressive driving to the goal and taking good shots,” Dahm said.
Both teams came out well prepared for the second half as they each battled back and forth. A total of three goals were scored in under a minute and a half of play. Burlingame came away with two of the three goals, freshman Adrienne Mulligan making the first and Pratt making the other, her second personal goal of the game. The Vikings reacted to Burlingame’s two goals with one of their own by attacker Helene Zahoudanis to keep the game even, 4-4.
Each team stepped up the defense, especially the goal tending, as shot after shot was denied. Paly junior goalie Anna Bastidas finished with 11 saves in the day.
“I think we were able to control the ball and play good defense, which helped us to stay in the game,” Dahm said.
Belding eventually regained the lead for the Panthers with a goal off an eight meter penalty shot to make the score 5-4.
Burlingame began to pull away late as Pratt scored two more goals, her third and fourth of the game.
“We kind of let it slip away at the end; we definitely could have won the game,” Zahoudanis said.
The Vikings lost with a final score of 7-4 as a conclusion to their first season.
“There’s a lot to learn, but we had incredible improvement and success for our first season,” coach Jen Gray said.
Paly’s first-year lacrosse program saw success, yet understands there is opportunity for improvement.
“I think we just need to keep working on the fundamentals and we’ll keep getting better,” Gray said.
Gray also spoke highly of Paly’s lacrosse program: “We had some fantastic hardworking athletes who were able to learn the game,” she said.
The team will lose just one of its 32 players to graduation after this season, which means the team is young and should have much to build upon for seasons to come.
“We had a really good season especially for a first year program. We finished in the middle [of the league], and I think we could be near the top next year,” Dahm said after her final game of her high school career.