SAMOHI — The next eight days won’t be easy for the Vikings.
The Santa Monica High School girls basketball team will continue their string of big games against non-league opponents during the coming days with matchups at Troy on Saturday and Santa Ana’s Mater Dei a week later. Troy (16-1 overall, 4-0 in league) is currently ranked eighth in the state on Maxpreps, a popular high school sports Web site. Mater Dei sits atop that and many other polls. Some polls have Mater Dei ranked number one in the country. Samohi is currently 25th in the state and 92nd in the nation, according to Maxpreps.
The game against Mater Dei (17-1 overall, 4-0 in league) will take place during the Santa Monica Extravaganza at Samohi on Jan. 30. Samohi Head Coach Marty Verdugo said he tries to match the best teams from the Westside against “the outside.” This is the second year Samohi is hosting the event.
“We have a lot of strong teams this year,” Verdugo said. “It’s going to be exciting.”
The field will include Windward, Inglewood, Ventura, Serra, Gahr, St. Monica, Culver City and Loyola. Samohi and Mater Dei will be the showcase game.
Aside from the two key non-league games, Samohi is in the heart of the Ocean League season. The Vikings (12-5 overall, 3-0 in league) travel to Culver City (13-7 overall, 2-1 in league) tonight. The teams take the court at 6 p.m. The boys teams from each school will play following the girls game.
