Girls water polo wins in first round of playoffs

The Samo girls water polo Greenies won the first round of CIF in a game against Polytechnic High School–Pasadena on Feb. 18, with a final score of 22-2.The team started off strong, scoring the first two points of the match within a minute of each other, and blocking of the opposing team from scoring at all in the first half. With a strong defense, nothing was able to get past them without being intercepted.“Our defense was strong throughout the game,” Arielle Melamed (’18) said. “The other team could never finish, and we took advantage of that by constantly pressing them.”Going into the second quarter, many interceptions of the other team allowed Samo to catch them off guard.Not only did the girls maintain a tough defense, but according to Alyssa Hattori (’17), they also had many opportunities to shoot on offense.“We tried to shoot as much as we could,” Hattori said. “Since their defense was weak, we knew if we could just aim it correctly the ball would go in.”Samo made a shot that was made just after the buzzer went out for half time, coming out of the 2nd quarter leading by 7-0.Going into the third quarter, the team had many assists, pulling the goalie out, and leaving the goal wide open to shoot.They put a lot of pressure on Poly, forcing the shot clock to run out on them multiple times.“We had already played this team and beat them,” head coach Matthew Flanders said. “They had a pretty good idea that they would be successful.”Having defeated this team 20-4 previously put Samo at a great advantage. The girls knew what they were going into.“They were really slow,” Hattori said. “We took advantage of that in counterattacking the ball.”Samo was able to lengthen the gap in the score by the end of the third quarter, coming out with a lead of 15-0. Only in the final quarter was the opposing team able to make two shots, while Samo made seven more.However, even coming out as victors, the greenies are ready to improve their game even further going into the next CIF game.“We gotta have a quicker start,” Flanders said. “We can’t get our offense rolling in the third quarter, it’s gotta be strong from the first whistle.”The girls are prepared to keep competing, and get all the way to finals in CIF.