Girls basketball faces first home game loss to Lawndale

On Jan. 27 Samo’s girls basketball team lost their first home game to Lawndale High School, 28-51, after a long and aggressive fight.Unlike previous matches, Samo started off to a bad start with head coach Douglas Kim calling a timeout within the first minute after Lawndale scored four points consecutively.“I thought Lawndale would be tough,” head coach Douglas Kim said. “They’re probably one of the best teams in the league.Although Samo did step up their game, the first period ultimately ended 8-14. “Our strategies were to play better defense and lockdown their best shooter. Although we did it at the beginning, it later became a bit too difficult for us,” Aylin Fernandez (’17) said.During the second period, it seemed as if they were slowly catching up, fighting their hardest for the ball and intercepting passes, but they gradually began to lose energy. They tried executing the strategy of passing the ball around to divert attention, but many of their passes were intercepted by their opponents and led to a greater difference, ending the first half 15-25. “I think they’re a team that like pressure so our focus was on how to break their pressure. I thought we actually did a great job of that, we just never finished what we started,” Kim said. “We had a bad shooting day, and that doesn’t bode well.”During the second half of the game, Samo ran after the ball and caught rebounds, but were still unsuccessful in many shots which led to their first home game loss in the Ocean League. “When you’re down by 10 points like we were then, you’re constantly trying to catch up and it takes a lot of energy out of you. It’s hard to win games like this. You really have to get on top of them,” Kim said.With only four games left, Samo has to win three out of the four to guarantee a spot in the playoffs. Despite the high ratio, Kim and his team are confident having beaten three out of the four teams already. “I’m sure it’s very doable. Having that already being said I think it’s difficult to beat a team twice, especially on their court, but we’ll have to step up our game,” Kim said. “I’m sure we know how to beat them, we’ve done it. And it depends on the character of our team, and the character of our team is deep. Because we have character, it’s not an undoable task.”