The Palo Alto High School varsity girls’ lacrosse team maintains its 3-0 perfect record after an 11-3 win over Leland High School on Wednesday at Paly.

The Vikings’ domination began in the first few minutes of the game. A goal from sophomore midfielder Kimmie Flather and two from senior attacker Sam Herzog helped the team pull ahead quickly.

Freshman attacker Charlotte Biffar, a young rising star on the team, scored twice before halftime, once with an assist from senior midfielder Maya Fielder.

“She [Biffar] just awesome,” junior goalie Lara Cutkosky said. “When Charlotte’s on the field and the ball is coming toward her you never have to worry about whether she’ll catch it or be able to get through attackers. And she’s just as good with her right hand as with her left.”

Junior midfielder Leigh Dairaghi was another forceful scorer, also putting away two goals in the first half.

The Vikings showed off their ball pickup skills with senior midfielder Lauren Mah scooping up a Leland overthrow to quickly pass to Dairaghi. Dairaghi promptly passed it on, chalking up an assist for a goal by senior attacker Brianna Boyd.

The Chargers, after suffering an injury that benched one of their players within the first five minutes, struggled throughout the first half to hold off the Vikings.

Communication was generally stronger among the Paly team than its opponents, but dropped balls were frequent on both sides.

“We needed to take better care of the ball,” Cutkosky said. “It’s important to look for the back door cuts most of all because there’s a better chance you’ll score if you do that correctly.”

Cutkosky racked up several neat saves in the first half, deflecting shots from two Leland attackers.

The whistle ending the first half sounded just as a goal shot from senior midfielder Emily Fowler sailed into the net. The goal was not counted, but the score at half time was still an impressive 8-0.

After the break, Mah led the team down the field to score quickly, closely followed by a goal from Fowler.

Leland continued to have trouble making precise throws, causing many of its players to get into tussles with Paly players over runaway ground balls.

However, the Leland team scored its first goal when a Leland attacker evaded several defenders to net a point against junior goalie Gayle Schumacher. This small success energized the Chargers, who celebrated briefly before rallying, scoring two more goals, and confining gameplay largely to their side of the field.

Schumacher blocked two other attempts before the Vikings took a time out to huddle.

“We weren’t playing defense with our feet — we were relying on our sticks,” Cutkosky said. “Jen [our coach] told us we could only check if our feet were in the right position. That helped us a lot.”

The Vikings refocused after the time out and senior attacker Mari Wilson scored the Vikings’ final goal in the last minutes of the game to bring the final score to 11-3.

Paly coach Jen Gray was pleased with the team’s success but acknowledged that there was room for improvement.

“We were a little sloppy out there,” Gray said. “It could have been the warm weather – but we did okay.”

Mah agreed.

“We just need to work on our stick skills and making clean catches and throws,” she said.

Gray recognized that a perfect record creates a lot of pressure for athletes, but she kept her focus on practicing hard and improving.

“To keep this streak, we need to improve on consistency,” Gray said. “We can do that by playing each other really hard in practice to make each other better. Overall, I’m very excited…hopefully we’ll keep the record going, but its a good way to start the season.”