Despite a slow finish, the Palo Alto High boys’ basketball team (9-2, 0-0) managed to keep its lead, winning its first league game against Fremont High School (6-8, 0-0) with a final score of 58-44.

The Paly boys controlled the first half, leading 35-20. Senior forward Alex Dees said that the game was a team effort.

“I think we did well,” Dees said. “It was one of our worst shooting nights of the season so we had to find other ways to score, but we were… up more than twenty and then we kind of stopped playing. …Overall it was a pretty good win. …I didn’t think any one player took over that game. …It was more of a team win.”

In the second half, Fremont caught up due to multiple fouls by the Vikings. However Paly managed to maintain the lead, outscoring Fremont by fourteen points in the end.

The boys’ basketball team will next play Wilcox High School (6-5, 0-0) at 7:45 p.m. on Jan. 9 at Wilcox.

The team will look to learn new sets and plays to counteract Wilcox’s zone formation, according to Dees.

“They [Wilcox] runs a zone so we are going to have to prep for that in practice…” Dees said, “We’ll run a scout team and learn some some new plays to counteract it.”