It won’t take San Benito boys volleyball head coach Emily Tonascia much time to admit, the Balers – on their way to a 15-1 record inside the Tri-County Athletic League – haven’t faced the toughest league schedule.
Through those 16 matches, the Balers surrendered only eight games and lost the first match of the year a day after half of its starting lineup returned from basketball.
But in the TCAL championship game against Monterey on Thursday, the Balers had anything but an easy time against the 15-1 Toreadors.
Despite falling behind two games to one, San Benito rallied to take the final two games and win it’s first league championship since 2009, beating Monterey 3-2 in front of its home crowd. It’s only the schools third volleyball championship — and second as a member of the TCAL.
The Balers struggled to find a rhythm through the match’s first three games before gaining control in the match-shifting fourth game. In the first three games, San Benito struggled to score more than a few points in a row. Instead, San Benito relied on 17 unforced Monterey errors in the first three games to stay close.
Overall, Monterey committed 20 errors to keep the Balers within striking distance. San Benito, though, played mostly clean.
“In a game like that — in a close game — you can’t afford to have unforced errors and we learned that early on,” Tonascia said. “That’s what kept us up through the fourth and fifth games. We realized that we might be tired, but we still want to be champions so we want to keep it clean.”
Once the Balers grabbed control of the match in the fourth game, they did.
San Benito won the fourth game 25-18 — the largest margin of the day — and controlled the pace of the game by limiting Monterey’s chances.
“We couldn’t get into a good rhythm all game, but we found a way to win no matter what the circumstances were,” captain David Hawks said. “It was a big win for us. I’ve talked all year about the mentality of this team, and we just refused to lose no matter what the circumstances. No matter how we are playing we refuse to lose and we always find a way to win.”
In the fourth, down two games to one, that was the time for San Benito to play its best, Hawks said.
“That’s when it’s time to eliminate the mistakes,” he said. “If you do that, the other team will let you win. If you play clean, you’ll win and that’s what happened tonight.”
In the final game, San Benito’s Carlos Gutierrez controlled the front to score five of his team-high 17 kills and lead the Balers to the clinching 15-11 victory.
Senior Isaiah Acfalle added 15 kills and Robert Henderson contributed 11 kills.
Hawks , the team’s captain, grabbed a game-high 42 assists, and Dylan Lomanto had 29 digs.
“We really worked together,” Lomanto said. “It was all teamwork. We really started to get into our groove during the last part of the fourth game and that fifth game. And that’s what really helped us — the crowd as well. We really had the momentum. This is what we worked for this whole season. We put it all out there on the court and I couldn’t be happier.”
The Balers, though, believe the win will only lead to greater success this year and in the future, Hawks said.
“It’s huge,” he said. “We only have two championships up there and this is a team that is graduating only three players. It’s huge. We will be back next year playing well.”
One of those returnees, Lomanto, sees the win as a building block.
“The program has improved so much this year,” he said. “We have a bunch of players coming out and we have even more next year. It’s a great win for the season, for TCALs and for the school.”
But first, San Benito will look to give the school its first volleyball win in the Central Coast Section playoffs.
“We’ve got to take it one game at a time,” Hawks said. “This school has never won a CCS game, so it’s important to focus on the first game so we can move on to the next.”
The Balers (29-4) will host Bellarmine (19-9) at 7 p.m. Thursday in Mattson Gym.
