That improvement took a monumental leap last night as the first-place Vikings defeated visiting Los Altos 66-40 for their seventh consecutive win.

With the win, Paly remains in a firstplace tie with Milpitas in the DeAnza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League after Milpitas beat Los Gatos by 10 last night.

Nik Ajagu turned in a sparkling performance for the Vikings (15-8 overall, 8-1 SCVAL DeAnza Division) with a gamehigh 33 points and was unstoppable at times in the paint.

"Tonight was similar to how he was playing earlier in the year," said Paly head coach Peter Diepenbrock. "He was injured for a good month of the season and he's slowly been getting better. We're not too surprised by tonight."

Ajagu was impressive during the first half in particular, where he scored 16 points alone in the first two quarters,

while Los Altos (6-15, 1-9) could manuge nly 11 points as a team in the first half'.

"We played really well tonight. they got me the ball and I was able to hit some shots," said Ajagu. "My teammates played really selflessly."

Ajagu removed any remaining doubt that he was the best player in the gym at the start of the fourth quarter by scoring 11 consecutive points for the Vikings before sitting down for the remainder of the game with four minutes left.

Paly started out firing right out of the gate, jumping out to 8-2 lead alter just three minutes to play. Junior center Beau Clark scored on consecutive putbacks during that spurt fot the Vikings. The Eagles managed narrow the margin to 8-5, but from there Paly would end the first quarter on a 9-2 run with four of those points coming from Ajagu, off of assists from Tak Abe and Aaron Wilson respectively.

The Vikings found themselves ahead 20-11 with 5:03 Ieft in the first half when they outscored Los Altos 12-0 to end the half. Ajagu scored 10 of the 12 points during the run with four field goals inside and two free throws. Sophomore guard Chris Bobel, who, finished with seven points, added the other two points during the run with a 16-foot jumper from the left wing off a Jon Whetstone helper.

Paly carried a commanding 32-11 lead at halftime.

The third quarter again saw the Eagles struggle to convert shots and defend their own basket. In a two-minute span of the quarter Paly went on another run, this time an 8-3 spurt to go ahead 43-16. On the run. Ajagu scored on a putback and added a free throw. Cliff Andersen swished a three pointer, and Whetstone, who added seven, scored off of a nifty move to the hoop.

A layup by Whetstone gave Paly their largest lead of the night at 58-24 with 3:51 left in the game.

"We're on a downhill slope, we're rolling now and our young guys are getting used to varsity and are playing with a lot of confidence," said Ajagu.