Boys tennis loses first home game against Beverly Hills

On Thurs. March 30, Samo's boys tennis lost their first league game 7-11 against one of their oldest rivals, Beverly Hills High School.After a long pre-season with five intense games and more than a month to get ready, the tennis league has finally started for Samo with an anticipated match against their closest rival.“It’s always exciting to play against Beverly Hills on the first league game,” Matthew Morawiec (’17) said. "I’m really proud of what I saw out there today but unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull the win because of too many mistakes. Even so, I’m not too worried because the errors we made just require more attention during practice.” Samo dominated the first hour of the meet when singles played, but towards the end, doubles didn’t perform at the same level. This inflection point made Beverly Hills switch leading roles with Samo and consequently, the meet started going downhill. However, even though the technique of both teams were at the same level, it was the lack of concentration the team suffered from that ultimately caused Samo to lose. According to coach Wilston Poon, the most determining factor of the game was staying focused, an area their rival had more determination for.  “Not playing up to our potential is what made the team lose,” Poon said. “Our team is well skilled and strong enough to win games, right now we need to focus on making our results more competitive and we will be fine.” After this bittersweet start of the season, the tennis team is already looking forward to revenge and beating Culver City High School in their second league game after the break.