Girls soccer narrowly defeats Beverly Hills

On Jan. 17, the Samo girls varsity soccer team won another league game against Beverly Hills High School, with a score of 1-0. This was an especially difficult game for our team to win with 90 minutes of impressive intensity. Samo never missed a beat and was deeply focused on protecting their goal. The team’s strategy was to retain control of the ball, so that Beverly would never have the ball for long. But as Samo continued to control the ball, Beverly became impatient and started to become quite physical. Alex Steigelfest (’19), a midfielder, explained the reason behind their success.“We were more of a possessive team and the other team was more of a kickball. We were successful by possessing around them,” Steigelfest said. It was down to the last minutes of the game, everyone was expecting another tied game. It was already impressive enough that Samo was able to prevent Beverly from scoring, but with only three minutes, Maryam Pearce (’18) scored, documenting yet another win for the Samo girl varsity team. She took a shot from outside the box and scored in the upper right hand corner, marking the win. Due to Beverly’s brutness, a Samo player got severely injured. Lauren Auerbach (’18) tore her ACL, one of the most intense and painful injuries in soccer. Unfortunately, Auerbach will need to rest from soccer for around nine months. But every player on the team is giving her the support she needs for a full recovery. Each player is extraordinarily important for a team, but since Auerbach is one of the team captains, the Samo team will need to make some adjustments in order to compensate.