The Palo Alto girls’ basketball team (6-5, 2-1) suffered a tough 34-39 loss to rival Gunn High School during at home on Friday, Jan. 15.
Both teams were slow to get on the scoreboard and the game remained close, with Paly behind two points after the first quarter, 4-6.
“Our game went pretty good, we came back second half,” said sophomore post Shamelia Clay, who led the team with 10 points. “As a team, our goal is fouling less.”
With four minutes to go in the game, senior guard Lauren Mah took a free throw and tied the score at 32-32. Gunn answered with a seven-point rally that put the Titans ahead for the rest of the game. The Vikings tallied two more points, but to no avail as Gunn took the first of two games between the rivals with a score of 34-39.
Senior point guard Victoria Shih spoke of the team’s disappointment with the loss.
“I think as a team we could have done a lot better,” said Shih. “We didn’t execute very well. We played hard, but we still need to play tougher. We had some shots but we need to run our offense a little bit better we’re going to take it to our next game.”
Despite the setback, the team is focusing on its goals for the rest of the season.
“Our goal from the beginning was definitely to win league, so we’ve dropped this game, but we’re looking for the league title,” Shih said. “My personal goal is definitely to help the younger players develop and mature. We have a lot of younger talent, we have a lot of potential, but hopefully by bringing up my game their game is going to step up too.”
Head coach Scott Peters had similar sentiments.
“We’re just gonna have to work harder on our defense, which I think we can do,” Peters said. “Our strategy going into the game was to pressure them with our defense, and take it into transition, we just didn’t do that.”
Despite the disappointing finish, Peters focuses the positives coming out of the game.
“I think Paly-Gunn games are always fun games,” Peters said. “With all the fans in the stands, it’s how high school basketball should be. So as far as the game–a hard-fought game–Gunn executed at the end, hit a couple big shots. Great comeback by our girls, we were up by two, we just need to execute at the end. But fun game, fun game.”
The Vikings will play again at 7 p.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 26, at Mountain View High School.