Samo boys’ volleyball dominates the court
Indigo Craane, Staff Writer
The Samo varsity boys’ volleyball season officially began Tuesday, March 1. Taking place in the North Gym, the boys’ volleyball team fought valiantly against Torrance High School.
The power shifted back and forth between the teams throughout the game, but ultimately it was Torrance Tartars that had the upper hand on the Samo Vikings. Samo won the first set, leading to high tensions between the feuding teams, but Torrance came back hard— taking the remaining two.
Despite losing at a score of 2-1, the score for each set was pretty tight. Coming back from a tournament in Torrance the previous weekend, where the team lost both days at a set score of 2-0, the volleyball team’s performance improved significantly which showed in their first home game.
Co-captain David (DJ) Bevan (’23), despite feeling disappointed in his team’s loss, has high hopes for the remainder of the season. Rather than sulking over their defeat, he is striving for the team to take it as a learning experience.
“We lost, but overall, we played a lot better than we did during our first tournament. Our team worked very fluidly. But when we were down, we got in our heads and couldn’t focus on the next point. We also had a lot of missed serves which we shouldn’t be giving away. But, I’m glad that we’re building greater chemistry and a stronger team,” Bevan said.
Though Samo did not win, the first game of their season demonstrated the underlying strength within the team ready to surface in the following games to come.
On Thursday, March 3, Samo’s boys’ volleyball team took on Beverly Hills High School in the North Gym. In the second home game of the season, Samo won 3-0 against the opposing Beverly Hills Normans. It was a complete landslide, all of which were in the favor of Samo. The fast-paced game seemed like nothing to the players, who effortlessly won point-by-point.
“Jamie is a big part of our success and we are happy to have him,” co-captain David Hix (’22) said.
On Wednesday, March 16, Samo lost to Redondo in a high stakes match. From the beginning, the Redondo Union team had speakers on full-blast, shuffling between the ‘Angry Birds’ and ‘Subway Surfers’ themes as the boys were prepping for the game. It seemed as though the taunts worked to intimidate Samo in the first set. Samo started off on the wrong side with a 7-10 lead for Redondo, before Colin Hughes scored back to back and managed to up the score from 7-9. In the end, however, Redondo still took the first set with a score of 10-24.
However, when Samo went into the second set, they didn’t start it much better. Regardless though, it seemed as though the team mostly shook off the previous taunts. Co-captain “DJ” Bevan (’23) highlighted player 9, Jamie Browning (’23) as an essential star player for this game, as well as previous volleyball matches this season. His incredible goal-setting got Samo and Redondo to an even score during the second set.
“Jamie Browning on our team is absolutely insane. His down balls are crazy,” Bevan said.
The third set showcased the strengths of Samo’s team— the Samo team seemed fluid in their dynamic, as though each player were working cogs in a churning wheell, despite losing in the end.
At this point in the season, Redondo is Samo’s strongest rival, and the match on March 16 has surely only kickstarted a string of intense matches between these two teams to come.
On Wednesday, March 16, the North Gym was filled with enthusiastic spectators for the battle between Wiseburn da Vinci and Samo. Wiseburn da Vinci wasn’t too wise with their moves during this match, losing to their opponents by 3-0.
The first set was very tight. It was initially slow; with every point that Samo won, Wiseburn would immediately win back. However, it wasn’t Samo’s offense that had took the first set — it was the defense. With player 9’s serve as the winning spike, Samo took the first set by 25-22.
With this win, the Vikings started the second set off with a vigor to win. Wiseburn didn’t even score a point until the Samo team was already up by 9 points. Player 33, Colin Hughes (’22) was essential to Samo taking the second set. His spikes had Wiseburn da Vinci’s team fumbling with the ball, resulting in their loss of 19-25.
The audience was especially impressed as the third set rolled around. Tensions rose as the sidelines yelled, “Let the river flow!” but in the last seconds of the match with the score standing at 22-23, Samo won points back-to-back which resulted in an eventual win of 26:24.
Samo boys’ volleyball team huddles in the center of the court, discussing their strategy for the upcoming game.