The Palo Alto High School (Paly) girls soccer team finished its regular season with an overall record of 10-4-5 and a league record of 6-2-4. This record put the team in fourth place in the De Anza League, behind Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Gatos High Schools.
There was not much to separate the top four teams: Mountain View High School’s team finished with 26 points, Los Altos High School with 24, Los Gatos High School with 23 and Palo Alto High School with 22. The fifth placed team, Saratoga, finished with just 12 points.
“[Fourth place] doesn’t represent how good we are as a complete team,” senior captain Megan Tall said. “We are just as good, if not better, than the teams that placed before us and we could easily have placed better. But a few games just didn’t go our way, for a number of reasons.”
Bad luck rather than lack of skill kept the talented team out of the top three places, according to Tall.
“The games we lost this year were all extremely close,” Tall said. “We have had bad luck with referee calls that could have gone either way, but went against us and led to goals for opposing teams.”
Senior captain Sunny Lyu has a more positive outlook.
“In some ways, [we deserved to finish in fourth, but in some ways, [we did not],” Lyu said. “We had bad luck with [referees] calling some game-deciding calls like penalty kicks, red cards and the disallowing of goals we scored.”
The team may have been disappointed with its league results, but so far it has had much success in Central Coast Section (CCS) Playoffs.
The team will face Los Gatos next, in the semi final on Wednesday, March 5. The team is confident about it chances to beat its rival and move on to the final.
Tall expects that, if Paly beats Los Gatos, it will play Santa Teresa in the final. Santa Teresa upset Mountain View High School in the quarter final.
Regardless of who Paly faces in the final, Tall is confident that the team can win.
“We can beat any team if we play to our full potential,” Tall said.
With CCS drawing to a close, any game could be the seniors’ last, and both captains hope that they can play in as many more games as possible.
Regardless of what happens in CCS, the team hopes to continue playing at a high level next season. With only four seniors graduating, most of the team will return next year.
“There is some really strong, young talent [on the team],” Tall said. “I think that the team will be able to maintain the level of success we’ve reached this year.”
