San Benito carded a 196 in just its second meet of the season at
Carmel Valley Ranch on Feb. 23, a 200 at Corral de Tierra Country
Club on Feb. 28, and a 202 at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch on March 2. On
Monday, at the second Tri-County Athletic League Tournament of the
season, the Balers proved their strong start is by no means an
aberration; they finally busted through their biggest roadblock of
the last several years in the Palma Chieftains.
HOLLISTER
It’s not as if the San Benito High boys’ golf team ran the table a year ago and qualified to the Central Coast Section Championships as a collective unit. But a strong start to the year — most notably, holding its own against powerhouse teams like Carmel and Palma — can provide a team an equal amount of swagger and confidence to one coming off a postseason berth the year before.
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After all, San Benito carded a 196 in just its second meet of the season at Carmel Valley Ranch on Feb. 23, a 200 at Corral de Tierra Country Club on Feb. 28, and a 202 at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch on March 2.
On Monday, at the second Tri-County Athletic League Tournament of the season, the Balers proved their strong start is by no means an aberration; they finally busted through their biggest roadblock of the last several years in the Palma Chieftains.
Yes, those Palma Chieftains.
“The conditions were blustery. It was cold, windy, but they played very well,” said San Benito head coach Chris Branon, whose team compiled a 196 to take first place at the Salinas Golf and Country Club. Palma finished second for the first time in at least four years with a 200.
Branon said of the 54 combined holes for his team on Monday, only twice did the Balers record a double-bogey.
“And that’s where your score adds up real fast,” Branon added. “But they managed the golf course really well, which is key.”
Finishing runner-up to the Chieftains has become an all too common occurrence for the Balers, who although tied Palma with a 185 during a league tournament in 2009, have otherwise placed second behind the private Salinas school for the last several years, at least.
Monday’s low snaps that second-place streak, and also continues the hot start San Benito has enjoyed through four tournaments this season.
In fact, with last year’s team unable to record a sub-200 score until April 22 in the sixth and final TCAL Tournament of the year, this year’s team has already done it twice, and is even averaging a sub-200 score through four tournaments.
In other words, the Balers are ahead of schedule, and its leading to a much needed boost in confidence for a game that doesn’t often supply much of it.
“This is the most potential we’ve ever had,” senior Nathan Winn said last Thursday, before San Benito toppled Palma in league play. Winn has been on the varsity team for four years now, and he’s helped lead the Balers to the CCS Regional in each of the last three seasons.
“As far as what we do with it, we’ll see during the season,” he added. “But we have a lot of potential.”
That much was evident on Monday.
“I feel we have a mature team this year, not in the sense of personality-wise, but in the sense of golf,” said senior Will Cross, who qualified as an individual with Winn toward last season’s CCS Championships. “We have a lot of guys who play hard.”
Hence, its ability to hang with, and even defeat, Palma and Carmel, which have each won the CCS in the last three years. Although the Chieftains remain the top prize, as they have for several years now, San Benito’s 196-221 dual-meet victory over Carmel injected a boost of confidence into the Balers that has only made its early-season tournaments that much easier.
“I think it’s good, knowing that we can compete with them,” Cross said. “It gave us confidence before the (TCAL) tournament even began. We have that edge.”
Again, that much was evident on Monday in Salinas, where the throwaway score for the Balers was just a 7-over 43.
San Benito reached its 196 behind freshman Aaron Smith’s 39, Jared Lantis’ 41, Winn’s 40, and a pair of medal performances by Cross and freshman teammate Ryan Han, each of whom tied Palma’s Jay Burlison with a tournament-low 2-over 38.
Part of San Benito’s boost can be credited to Han, too, who has now medaled in both TCAL Tournaments this season; he recorded a 2-under 34 at Laguna Seca on March 2.
“The thing with Ryan is that he knows what he needs to do. He knows what he needs to get done,” Cross said. “He doesn’t play like a freshman, doesn’t act like one, either.”
Said Winn, “He hits it like a champ.”
Prior to high school, Han made a bit of a name for himself through the Northern California Golf Association, perhaps making the TCAL Tournaments that much easier. Although he said his performance at Laguna Seca was the “first time he’s done well there,” the first-year golfer hasn’t shown much in the way of pressure or nerves this season.
“I just do my part,” he said. “Just play my own game and hopefully I’ll end up doing well.
“I’ve played a lot of tournaments, so it’s pretty much the same thing.”
As for the Balers, they may have the right mix to crack into the CCS Championships this season, although that remains to be seen. To date, each golfer who has cracked the varsity lineup has managed shoot a score in the 30s.
Now, it’s a matter of compiling the best lineup.
With four returning golfers from last year’s team that finished in eighth place at the CCS Regional, including Cross, Winn, Jade Kimura and Tony Ramos, Branon expects to have a varsity roster that is nine- or 10-deep this season, with the top six competing at a given match.
With Smith, Lantis, Winn, Cross and Han having competed in each varsity match so far this season, though, San Benito’s sixth spot could be up for grabs among those remaining golfers, which includes John German, among others, who recorded a 2-over 38 for the junior varsity team at Laguna Seca on March 2.
“My job is difficult this year,” Branon said last Thursday.
“The pressure is getting the best six (golfers) out there, all moving toward TCAL and CCS. But we don’t want to just get there; we want to do well there, and I think we can do it. It’s just a matter of finding the right (mix of) players.”
