The Palo Alto High School boys’ soccer team (0-7-2) played a close match but lost 0-2 to cross-town rival Gunn High School (1-2-1). Gunn scored its two goals midway through the second half, within a minute of each other. Paly’s defense proved strong enough to keep the Titans at bay for the first half, but crumbled as Titan midfielders Micah Brown (’14) and Andriy Krustalyov (’12) powered the ball into the goal.
Throughout an even first half, Paly escaped several close shots and kept the score at 0-0. Both teams seemed equally matched, with numerous turnovers. Goalie Tony Maharaj (’14) found much action, once blocking two successive shots by Gunn’s Sam Hayward (’13).
However, the Titans’ command of the ball in the first half increased throughout the second half, and 21 minutes into the second half, Brown scored the first goal of the game. Maharaj was unable to defend against Brown’s two successive attacks and the ball edged into the goal.
The Titans’ David Koo (’14) drove the ball again past center back Alex Chin (’13) but missed an opportunity to score once again as the ball flew too far left.
Gunn’s offensive didn’t let up, as it powered forward again for a third try with Johnny Sun (’14) bringing the ball far up field. After quick passes from Sun to Koo to Krustalyov, Krustalyov scored Gunn’s second point of the match.
Paly found the Titans on their half of the field for much of the second half and attributed their loss to an ineffective offensive.
“In the beginning it was pretty even but we just lost it and had lost those two goals and it just went downhill from there,” Maharaj said. “Then, they just started getting on our half and we couldn’t get anything done offensively.”
Head coach Donald Briggs agreed, noting that Paly’s play was quite good for most of the game.
“I think if you took about five minutes out of the game, we did really well,” Briggs said. “The first goal was kind of a letdown, but two minutes later they scored again and we hadn’t scored any, so it was really hard.”
Briggs also noted that his young team wasn’t quite able to bounce back from losing two points in such a short period of time.
“Part of being a young team, all of a sudden, instead of getting a little down after giving up a goal, we didn’t get fired up and give the goal back and there’s a little letdown, and giving the second goal away, it’s insurmountable,” Briggs said.
The Vikings play Saratoga Friday Jan. 13 in their third match of the season, and Maharaj and Briggs both see room for improvement.
“We were working on trying to build up from the back instead of just sending long balls, because then we’re just playing kick ball and we didn’t get every ball, and we didn’t have that many shots so we need to work on creating more options,” Maharaj said.
Briggs saw his team’s eagerness to play on the offensive, but maintained the necessity of controlling the ball and keeping it away from the opposition.
“I know some of the players go, ‘we need to be more offensive’, but you can only be more offensive when you can control the ball and move up as a team,” Briggs said.
