Samo battles El Segundo in a close match

On Wednesday, Oct. 19, Samo boys water polo’s second loss ended 12-10 against El Segundo High School. The first time Samo played their rival this season was at a tournament only one weekend before this game took place. Even though they lost the first time, they were still fairly confident that they were going to win this game. “We really have to work on our defense if we want to beat them at their home,” coach Matthew Flanders said.Samo got off to a rough start, allowing El Segundo to take a two point lead with Samo only scoring once. The first sprint of the game was won by El Segundo, starting them off with ball. “We had everything we needed to win, but couldn’t execute that well,” Kingmin Lee (’18) said. Samo fought hard in the second round, trying to make up for the lack of goals they were missing and volleying the ball back and forth. The only point scored by Samo was made by Sawyer Koetters (’19), which was shot at the half court line a minute before the quarter ended. “We were really resilient because for every goal they made we tried to take our revenge quickly,” Koetters said. By the second half, Samo had managed to score four points. However, so did El Segundo, placing the scoreboard at 5-7. “All in all even if it was a bad day we still did our best and that's what counts,” Josiah Guzman (18) said. The eighth goal was shot by Carlos Edwards-Palmo (’17) in the last second of the third quarter, putting the scoreboard at 10-8. Towards the end, El Segundo started to play tired, which caused multiple ejections on their team. This left Samo with many opportunities to score, but time was not on their side and the buzzer blared. “All we needed to do is improve our defense and then we would’ve won,” Dean Carr (’18) said.  Although Samo lost twice to El Segundo, they still have a strong chance of winning Ocean League.