Samo Girls' Soccer beats Santa Paula in the first round of CIF

On Feb. 19th, Samo girls' soccer achieved its first playoff  win over Santa Paula High School in overtime with a score of 3-2.Before the start of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championships, coach Jimmy Chapman moved up junior varsity (JV) players Morgan Affleck ('17), Amber King ('16) and Maiya Coleman ('17) to help strengthen the team even more."They did a great job, and they got quite a bit of playing time,” defender Janet Coleman-Belin ('15) said.Before the end of the second half, Ariana Lomeli (’15)  sent the ball to captain Hannah McNally (’15) off a corner kick, who then kicked the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal to equalize the score and send the game into overtime.After the second half the teams entered the field for a golden goal with a 20-minute overtime, meaning that whichever team were to score first would be declared the winner.According to Coleman-Belin and goalkeeper Madeline Kresin (’17), Francine Rios-Fetchko (’16) was the most valuable player due to her solid play throughout the whole game and her kick to stop the ball from entering into Samo’s goal that kept the Vikings in the running for the CIF title.After Rios-Fetchko’s save, midfielder Gabrielle Clouse (’16) sent a cross to forward Chloe Kleinman (’16), who headed it in to give Samo the win."That game didn't do us much justice considering our level of play," captain Gabriella Dyrek ('15) said. "We struggled with communication, which ultimately cost us one goal. As a team we need to attack more and find the drive that will last us 80 minutes."While Samo eventually won the game, the team members are still looking to reevaluate and fix problems before the next round of play."There are a lot of little things that we need to clean up before Tuesday [when we have our] next game,” Coleman-Belin said.Samo will play its next game against San Marino High School, at San Marino High School on Tuesday, Feb. 24.