Girls Volleyball takes on Hawthorne in their first League Game

On Tuesday, Sept. 27, the girls volleyball team went head-to-head against Hawthorne High School in their first Ocean League game. The girls won in three sets out of five and strive to continue this pattern as they get closer to CIF.“These games are more for practice. Since we kind of know the outcome, it is more to work on stuff for when we play the harder teams in league,” Jackie Zakharin (’18) said. Within the first six minutes of the first set, Samo earned a nine point lead with a score of 14-5 and carried this lead throughout the entire game. By the end of the set, Samo won its first out of five matches with a final score of 25-5.“We are all friendly with each other, so that just makes it a lot easier to click on the court. We have become well able to anticipate each other’s moves, which helps out,” Veronica Johnson (’18) said.As the second set commenced, Hawthorne tried to make a comeback and briefly tied the game at 7-7. “We learn from our mistakes in games like this,” Johnson said. “We can try new things and not much have to worry about a tough opponent.”However, Samo quickly got their lead back with the relentless serves of Kelly Priebe (’19) and a great defense by Amelia Fischer (’18) and Izzy Damico (’19). The team worked together to retrieve their lead, and ended their second set with a final score of 25-12. “Sometimes it’s hard to focus in games like this,” Zakharin said. “It’s easy to have fun so we use opportunities like this to work on our mental focus, individually and as a team.” At the start of the third set, Samo came out strong once again with tough serves and strong teamwork from Johnson and Grace Garland (’17). In the end, the final score of the winning set was 25-5. This will hopefully be a representation of what we should expect from these girls for the rest of the season.