From new programs making an instant impact to established squads embarking on deep playoff runs, Samohi athletics took locals on a wild ride in 2023-24.
Success arrived nearly as soon as students arrived on campus in August, as the debuting Samohi Girls Flag Football program kept up the heat throughout the fall months. The Lady Vikings, coached in its inaugural season by Ramsey Lambert, finished 16-3 and became Ocean League champions with an undefeated 8-0 league play stretch.
The 2023 fall season was the first to be officially sanctioned by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), meaning both Lambert and his players needed to work out the kinks in the flag football rulebook. Working as a true unit, the Lady Vikings excelled thanks in large part to senior co-captain Isabella Sanchez, who was nominated for the LaDainian Tomlinson High School Player of the Year Award by the National Football Foundation.
“It’s kind of cool that me and all these other girls are a part of [this], and hopefully girls in the future will look to us,” Sanchez said. “Not just be thankful, I just hope everyone can build off of what we’ve done, because … I can just see how much [the sport is] gonna grow.”
The boys football team had its own set of triumphs, finishing 9-5 and advancing to the CIF Southern Section Division 9 championship game. Though the Vikings lost a tough 29-27 battle against Rio Hondo Prep in the finals, the team was in a handful of instant classics, including a 33-27 overtime playoff win over Santa Ana within a swath of fog.
Senior leaders also pushed the Samohi squad, including All CIF-Southern Section selections Caden McCallum, Griffin Seals, Jayden Montanez and Mason Oliva. McCallum was a two-way force for the Vikings, racking up 1,604 yards and 24 touchdowns on the ground while also leading the team in tackles (108).
“For me, it meant more than just representing our school, but representing our city, and that was as a football team one of our mottoes of the year, representing our city,” McCallum said.
Other playoff appearances in the fall season included the boys water polo team and the girls volleyball team. Both units were bolstered by their respective senior standouts, Darragh Flanders and Emersen Werger, who will be moving onto the college ranks at Pomona Pitzer College in Claremont (Flanders) and the University of Denver (Werger).
“It was super cool to be a part of a sport because the volleyball program is such a community, Werger said of her time at Samohi. “Even now, when the season is done, walking around campus and seeing everyone is rewarding, to have such [a] little family on campus.”
Flanders, who now holds the record for most career goals in Samohi water polo history, was able to be coached by his father Matthew with the Vikings.
“He’s been playing since he was 10 [and] it’s been great to watch him,” Coach Flanders said of his son. “I played water polo, his mom played water polo, his uncle played water polo. It’s a water polo kind of family, so he’s got the pedigree.”
Individual sports had accomplishments in the fall as well, ranging from Phoebe Benun’s run to the CIF State Meet in cross-country to the Lady Vikings golf team securing its first victory in years. The golf unit, anchored by seniors such as Kara Best, were finally able to put together a roster with the size and skill to compete on the course.
“That was really exciting for us, because before, we didn’t really have a lot of players in the past years,” Best said. “It’s my last season, so it was nice to get a win.”
The winter months brought playoff appearances for the Vikings basketball and Lady Vikings soccer squads, with key seniors including basketball big man Anton Berge-Wells and soccer standouts Cassie Bibby and Samantha Possell. The Vikings hoops team finished 16-13 before dropping its opening playoff contest to Westlake, while the 9-9-2 Lady Vikings were ousted in its inaugural playoff bout against Harvard-Westlake.
Possell, a multi-sport athlete also competing in tennis, loved how her senior year transpired with close friends. Possell will be attending the University of Texas at Austin, while Bibby has committed to join the college soccer ranks at USC.
“[Samohi] soccer was really cool because it was a reunion for a lot of the players,” Possell said. “We had all played on [youth soccer] teams when we were little, and then we went separate ways for club teams, but we all got to play together in high school. It was so much fun and a really cute way to end my soccer career.”
Also in team action during the winter were Vikings boys soccer along with Lady Vikings water polo and girls basketball. On the individual front, a trio of Samohi wrestlers (Oliva, Alicia Lewis and Arata Sakamoto) competed at the CIF Masters Meet in February, with Oliva taking fifth place in the Blue 285 division.
Arguably the highlight of the spring was the Vikings baseball team’s run to the CIF Southern Section Division V championship game, eventually falling 4-1 to champion Chino Hills. The Vikings were anchored on the mound by senior Jackson Klein, who mowed through batters to the tune of a 10-2 record with a 0.62 earned run average and 101 strikeouts in 79 innings of action. Klein also joined the ranks of California’s top hurlers early in the season, throwing consecutive no-hitters for the Vikings.
“[My career] was always the feeling of representing something bigger than yourself,” Klein said. “You were representing the city. You had the whole city behind you.”
A balanced lineup carried things offensively, made up of a mix of junior leaders like Brady Satinover and Isaac Liberman to senior presences like Bobby Munoz and Spencer Levin. Levin, who called his teammates his “best friends” and “like brothers,” also credited the Vikings coaching staff for the 21-8 season.
“I think the support of the coaches and the time commitments they had to teach us and show us what we need to do and giving us opportunities was very helpful,” Levin said.
Team athletics in the spring also featured playoff appearances from the Vikings boys lacrosse team and Lady Vikings softball squad, as well as spirited play from the boys volleyball and girls lacrosse units. Though the boys volleyball team didn’t make postseason competition, the class of 2024 was sent off with three monumental tournament-style victories, including defeating the highly-ranked Sanger Apaches.
“My time as a student-athlete at [Samohi] was an overall positive and rewarding experience,” volleyball senior Maceo Gifford said. “I met a lot of new friends through sports and got closer with the athletic community.”
On the track and in the swimming pool, individual athletes shined during the spring season, such as a select group of Samohi track and field standouts that competed in the CIF Southern Section Masters Meet. At the meet, Benun finished just outside the top 10 in the 1,600-meter, while Reign Snowden competed in the shot put finals. The team of Benun, Cleo Topp, Maeko Gross and Matilde Martinez finished sixth in the 4x800 relay.
In the pool, both Chase Douglass and Jackson Nessel competed in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 championships, as both the boys and girls units bonded throughout the year.
“The team was amazing and supportive, we all had each other’s backs and got really close, and worked really hard to do [well],” senior swimmer Genevieve Slavonia said.
thomas@smdp.com
