Boys soccer surges to finish off season

It was a bittersweet ending for the boys’ soccer team as they ended their last game with a win against the number one Ocean League team, El Segundo High School. However, their win wasn’t enough to qualify them for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) playoffs.Nevertheless, this season can be wrapped up in a nutshell as a progressive one. The Vikings entered league with a 1-9 deficit in preseason, however, after a couple games their rhythm started to click and they were able to climb up all the way to fourth place in league and end their season with a two game winning streak.“In our games at the start of the year we didn’t play to our full potential,” midfielder Nathaniel Toth (’18) said. “We really came together as a team by learning to trust each other, then we started winning games.”According to center midfielder Rico McGary (’17), the team came together during practices throughout the year. During regular training sessions, the team worked on specific tactics in order to be ready for match day.“We always tried to push ourselves to get 10 out of 10 effort each practice,” McGary said. “I believe what helped lead us to success are the things we worked a lot on–pressuring the other team and playing with high intensity.”This refined strategy was seen in their final match of the season. Samo expertly pressured the El Segundo offense, leading to many steals for the home side. Samo’s fast-paced playing style really caught El Segundo off balance, which documented their improvement, for earlier in the year Samo lost to the Eagles before finding their new style.The changes that came in practice would’ve never been possible without a good mind set, and according to midfielder Sylvain Wolfe (’16), the team reached this point towards the end of the season.“Basically the entire team bought into the proper winning mentality and we started to actually enjoy playing the game together as a unit,” Wolfe said.The final game of the season came on Senior Night, and though Samo will not continue on to the playoffs, they managed to send off their team veterans on a high note. With promising young talent on the varsity squad, Samo heads into the offseason ready to prepare for the next one, for many more challenges surely lie ahead for the goal-scoring vikings.