Girls Soccer Sweeps in Game against Malibu

On Tuesday, Nov. 29, Samo the girls soccer team won their first game of the season against Malibu High School with a staggering 8-0 sweep.The game kicked off with Maggie Lena (’17) scoring a goal within the first seven minutes of the game. She ended the game with a total of four goals, with forward Dai Williams (’19), midfielder Lauren Auerbach (’18), and defender Alyssa Tohyama (’18) who all scored one goal. “We performed very well,” forward Leilani Arvizu (’17) said. “We controlled the midfield which is really good and we attacked and kept going and going. Our results show that we played well.” Throughout the duration of the game, the girls were consistently connecting their shots and moving the ball around the field. It was visible to see that Malibu was being worn out from all the movement.“We were able to keep the ball on Malibu’s defensive half for most of the game, and did a really good job connecting passes and moving the ball around from one side of the field to the other,” midfielder Bita Maknouni (’17) said.  Even though the results of their first win showed the girls’ strength, varsity assistant coach Angel Vasquez is concerned about their next match up against Mira Costa High School.  “Our next game against Mira Costa will be a tough one. It will actually help us see exactly where we are,” Vasquez said. “We want to see how our outside backs do as well against Mira Costa. Mira Costa usually has a very tough team that we play every year. They won’t expose us, so we’ll see what we need to work on.”Although the girls performed well, members on the on team believe that they should focus on improving their ball movement and passing.“I think that one thing we could work on is being faster with our transitions from offense to defense, so as soon as we lose the ball we should automatically try to block all their options and get the ball back,” Maknouni said.The results of the game show that the girls have a promising season ahead of them.