Santa Monica High was driven out of the CIF Western Division football playoffs Friday night in a 45-26 loss to Palmdale.
As the third place team in the Ocean League the Vikings were given a difficult first round assignment — take a long trip to face a quality opponent, the high-scoring Golden League champion.
The loss ended Samohi’s season with a 4-7 record. Last season Samohi went 8-3 but also lost in the first playoff round.
The first round results indicated the Ocean League wasn’t very strong this season. First place Culver City lost at home to Dominguez, 64-27 and second place Inglewood, which also had a home game, lost to Chamibade, 35-14.
After Zach Cuda coached Santa Monica the last three years Travis Clark took over this season.
Clark views his debut as the beginning of building a successful program and has praised several sophomores for their growth.
Even though Clark knew the difficulty of the playoff assignment he thought it would be a good experience for the players.
With the season over a few of the seniors will focus on choosing a college. Luke Zelon, who led the Vikings in tackles with 10 per game, will choose from a list of interested schools that include Iowa State and Washington State.
Several schools showed an interest in quarterback Garrett Safron, who threw for 220 yards per game and completed 60 percent of his attempts.
In a ceremony at Palmdale High earlier in the week defensive back Joshua Shaw announced he will attend Florida, rejecting USC and others.