Boys water polo season leaves high hopes for future

Samo’s boys water polo CIF season was cut short when they were defeated in the first round on Wednesday, Nov. 9 against Laguna Beach High School. Unfortunately, most of the team was disappointed with their overall performance, considering that they made it to the semifinals last year. Because the team this year was made up of mostly juniors and sophomores, this gave them a slight disadvantage against the other teams which were mostly made up of seniors. “We weren't expected to do as well as we did, considering most of the team was new to varsity,” Peter Lee (’19) said. The team did pretty well overall in league, only losing the to league champions, El Segundo High School. Samo boys water polo has had a rivalry with El Segundo for over a decade, and this sparked a aggressively intense attitude. Although Samo lost to El Segundo, they did manage to beat other tough high schools such as Culver City High School and Beverly Hills High School. “I think the team will do better next year because everyone on the team will do better as a whole. Also, most of the players are doing Westside and will learn how to work together,” Timmy Eagle-Serrano (’18) said. Last year, water polo had quite the exceptional season, with Varsity ending their season in the CIF semifinals. This year’s team did not make it that far, considering most of the key seniors have left Samo to compete in college level games. This will hopefully give the juniors an advantage next year.“For what we were we did good but overall we could have done way better,” Quinlan Plukas (’19) said. Most of the players have improved throughout the season hopefully setting up a good base for next year. A few team members stand out the most in their attempted improvements however, one of them being Sebastian Zapatero (’19), one of the few sophomores on varsity.“They were pretty successful for a young team,” coach Matthew Flanders said.All in all, the Vikings had a hard working season that will in turn improve their playing ability greatly for the future.