Girls lacrosse loses home game before spring break against Redondo Union

On Fri. March 31, the girls lacrosse team played their first league game against Redondo Union High School, losing the game 5-15 after a hard fought battle.This was the first time these two teams have played each other, and most of the Samo athletes were not very optimistic regarding the outcome of the game.“I was expecting them to be a really challenging team,” Iris Watanabe (’18) said. “They have a really high winning average and our team had a pretty slow week at practice. We just have to make sure to keep up our existing skills and improve on our weaknesses and we can come back after break even better.”Coach Justine Bierne shared similar prospects on the game. According to Bierne, the team did not have all their players and El Segundo is a strong team in general, leading to an unknown prediction of an outcome of the game.“They have a lot of really talented players but I still wanted the girls to play their hardest and see how they matched up,” Bierne said.Though the players thought they had a lot of improvements to make, they also thought that the referees showed a lot of favoritism towards the other team. “I thought there were a lot of calls that the refs made that either impaired our team or helped the other team,” Chelsea Moran (’19) said. “Obviously there are a lot of improvements we need to make but the refs need to work on being impartial.” Co-captains, Watanabe and Lily Reynaldos (’17), both agreed that the team played a very disorganized game in the first half. Even though they were able to score, there was a lack of  communication, and the other team was able to beat Samo’s defense and score more. “Our team got a bit deflated and frustrated towards the end of the game. Having so many unfair calls in one game makes it harder to concentrate on playing our best,” Reynaldos said. “There are definitely a lot of things to work on for the next games, but I think we are all hoping for a fair ref next time.”