Boys' soccer suffers defeat against Santa Paula in first round of CIF

The journey to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship ended on Wednesday, Feb. 18 for the boys’ soccer team, after it lost 1-0 against Santa Paula High School.

Samo maintained possession of the ball throughout most of the game. After a collision with an opposing defender, however, team captain and striker Diego Serrano (’15) sustained a torn meniscus. Consequently, Samo players were limited in their attacking options, partially contributing to their lack of goals.

“Going into the game, we knew we had a matchup that played to our team’s strengths,” Coach Cory Prost said. “[Our rivals] were a small technical team and had a turf home field just like ours. Unfortunately, we could not take advantage of the chances we got and they were able to capitalize on one of their chances. The biggest difference was losing our captain Diego eight minutes in.  He created two scoring opportunities in that time and we missed his physicality in the final third throughout the rest of the game.”

At the beginning of their participation in the league, Samo players struggled to find their rhythm and unity with the team.

“I think that as a team, we weren’t as unified during the preseason due to injuries and our starting lineup wasn’t really solidified yet and we were constantly playing with different line ups each game,”  defender Nikan Namiri (’15) said. “But when season came we understood that the time had come to play as hard as we could because for us seniors it was do or die, regardless of who was playing or not.”

After the game with Culver City High School on Friday, Feb. 6, the team was able to move up through the ranks of Ocean League by securing third place and a spot in playoffs.

“I am happy with the improvement we made over the season and I am very proud of the brand of soccer that we played,” Prost said. “We had a very tough schedule and competed every game. This season we challenged our team with a strong strength of schedule to prepare for a much tougher league. Although our record doesn’t show it, we played a much higher quality of soccer and played some of the best teams from Southern California in LB Millikan, Palos Verdes, El Segundo, Lawndale and Mira Costa.”

Throughout the season, Samo has faced off against teams that are ranked in the top 50 for the state, while Samo is ranked in the 400s.

During the season, the team tightened its playing by looking at individual games in a new way.

“We are creating more offensively and becoming mentally tougher defensively,” Prost said. “We are starting to get better looks on goal and are taking better control of games.”

Samo has improved in its keeping possession of the ball, speed of play and its tenacity on the field and the unity of coming together as a team to create a more harmonized playing style.

“As far as our style of play goes everything will remain the same,” Prost said. “We are looking to play faster so we can create more goal scoring opportunities and execute our game plan for the entire game.  We can play with any team in the Division we just need to improve our focus and string longer stretches of complete soccer together.”

Though Samo boy’s soccer will not be advancing to finals, the team has improved greatly throughout the season and will be a team to look after in next year’s season.

“This season was very up and down for us, with many injuries and many setbacks,” midfielder Jordan Keen (’16) said. “Alhough inconsistent, our defense as well as ball possession was something that improved, but ultimately, it all comes down to effort. In order for us to win, we must come  together as a unit and learn how to play the game as a team. If this happens, we will be more successful than we were this year.”