Paly’s varsity girls’ soccer team ended regular season play with a heartbreaking 4-3 loss to Mountain View on Friday, Feb. 6 at Paly.

The game was intensely offense-oriented, with the Vikings and Spartans trading near-goals every few minutes.

“Our offense did a really good job pushing the [Mountain View] goalie,” junior midfielder Kaitlyn Patterson said.

During the first half, the two teams appeared to be fairly evenly matched, but Mountain View managed to emerge with a 3-2 lead.

Throughout the second half, Paly had a clear advantage, creating many more scoring opportunities than Mountain View. Even so, the Vikings were unable to overcome the one-goal deficit with which they had begun the second half.

“Even though we were down, we were able to come back with our offense,” Patterson said. “Ultimately, time ran out before we could pull out the win.”

Patterson noted that, even though Paly ended up losing, the team played well.

“I think we felt like we controlled the game more than they [Mountain View] did,” Patterson said. “It really easily could’ve gone our way instead, but unfortunately it didn’t.”

Paly finished regular season play ranked fourth in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League, behind first-ranked Monta Vista, second-ranked Los Gatos, and third-ranked Los Altos. Paly’s overall record stands at 9-7-4, while the team’s record in league play is 5-5-2.

According to junior midfielder Erika Hoglund, Paly still has a chance to make it into the Central Coast Section playoffs.

“There are a lot of good teams out there that have a lot of points, but we hope that we’ve done enough to get in,” Hoglund said. “It’s going to be really close.”