Samo takes a hard loss at Homecoming game against Hawthorne

On Oct. 14, Samo’s football team lost against Hawthorne High School at the Homecoming game, finishing with a score of 40-28. With an optimistic start, Samo won the toss up, having Hawthorne receive the ball first. “I think our hopes [for this game] were to bring a win for homecoming," athletic director Tim Ballaret said. "It’s our third home game of the season, but our first league game here so I definitely wanted to come out with a win.” After touchdown attempts from both teams, Hawthorne scored the first 7 points of the game on a second punt return, allowing them to take it all the way down the field. However, Samo didn’t let them get too far. Quarterback Dariush Sayson (’18) picked up a loose ball, leading to an eventual touchdown and leveling the game to 6-7.“We weren’t too worried about it because traditionally we start slow," coach Ramsey Lambert said. "At this point, we were okay. It was just not being able to fix our mistakes offensively [that contributed to our downfall].”The second quarter started out with an incomplete pass by Hawthorne’s offense and two consecutive injuries against both teams. Despite their rocky start, they came back to score their second touchdown, pulling ahead of Samo 13-6.“There was a lot of stoppages out there tonight," Ballaret said. "A lot of injuries on both sides, which is always unfortunate to see." In desperation and lost hope, Samo attempted to stop the other team, but Hawthorne scored a touchdown 36 seconds before the end of the half. This brought them to a 13 point lead, making the score 19-6. Although Samo came close to minimizing the gap, time ran out and the teams were sent to the locker rooms to reflect and get motivated.“We dropped a lot of footballs, defensively we didn’t tackle that well, we made a mistake right at the end and gave them a late touchdown by one of our defenders," Lambert said. "So if we were smart enough just to stay out of [arguments on fouls] and score that one [touchdown], then we were either down by one or winning by one."As the buzzer marked the second half, Samo came out strong by scoring a touchdown and closing Hawthorne’s lead with a score of 12-19. “We finally sparked a bit; however the defense did not execute as well as we wanted it to,” Sayson said.With two more injuries for Hawthorne's lineup, Samo was sure to pull ahead. But they were challenged by another touchdown from their opposing counterparts, bringing Hawthorne’s lead back with a score of 26-12. By the end of the third quarter, the score remained but Samo was far from taking an undeserving loss. “[Unfortunately,] we came out flat with little energy and missed one of [our] key players who was unable to play after the first half,” Sayson said.Despite Samo’s high aspirations to win, Hawthorne came out strong and scored another touchdown with the extra point, increasing the score to 33-12. Samo fought back, making a field goal and another touchdown, closing Hawthorne’s lead to 13 points.“[Our goal is always] to compete at every level, move the ball, tackle better than we did the week before and be mad about last week’s loss and focus on bringing in wins for our school,” Lambert said.By the end of the second half, Samo trailed 40-28, taking a loss at the homecoming match. “I would definitely like to see a win next game," Ballaret said. "I think the coach will take this back, and see what things they could have done a little better and what things they can improve on for the next game. [We’ll] work on those in practice next week and come back stronger.”