Balers look to bounce back for a second time at Alisal Friday,
the Tri-County Athletic League opener for both teams
A loss is a loss, right?
While there’s no such thing as a good loss, mind you, there are
ways to categorize the play of a team in defeat. A team that
battles and barely loses certainly has more to build on than a team
that rolls over and falls behind by five touchdowns.
Balers look to bounce back for a second time at Alisal Friday, the Tri-County Athletic League opener for both teams
A loss is a loss, right?
While there’s no such thing as a good loss, mind you, there are ways to categorize the play of a team in defeat. A team that battles and barely loses certainly has more to build on than a team that rolls over and falls behind by five touchdowns.
Categorizing San Benito’s two losses on the season can be held in a similar light. Although the Balers displayed much more offense in a 34-13 loss to Oak Grove in Week 1, they were essentially out of the game by halftime when they trailed 27-0.
Last Friday’s 23-6 loss to visiting Palo Alto, meanwhile, showed a San Benito team that was perhaps outmatched, but nevertheless remained in the game — the Balers trailed the fifth-ranked Vikings 7-6 at halftime and 14-6 entering the fourth quarter.
“We played much harder against Palo Alto,” head coach Chris Cameron said earlier this week. “I liked their heart, liked their effort. We just didn’t have enough to go against them.
“But we played hard against those guys. We didn’t play real well all the time, but we played hard.”
Similar to its previous loss two weeks ago, though, the Balers were shown plenty of areas in need of improvement, areas that can only be exposed in defeat. Said Cameron, “A loss is gonna show you more than a victory.”
In terms of the offense, which was held without a touchdown last week and to a season-low 96 total yards, the list was long — not executing assignments, not lining up correctly, not blocking the right player and not motioning properly, among other things.
The Balers had several miscues last Friday — whether it be a bobbled pitch or a quarterback sack or a costly penalty — that had a way of throwing a wrench into any drive.
Take, for instance, the team’s opening series of the second half. Trailing 7-6, the Balers marched from their own 29 to the Palo Alto 34 on five plays, but were then called for an unsportsmanlike penalty on first-and-10.
San Benito punted three plays later.
“We didn’t take advantage of a lot of opportunities,” quarterback Tyler Decker said last week. “Stuff just wasn’t going right. We made a lot of mistakes on offense — small stuff, fundamental stuff — that we shouldn’t be making.”
San Benito’s defense, on the other hand, fared better against Palo Alto last Friday, although it had a difficult time stopping the Vikings’ passing attack. Quarterback Christoph Bono threw for 207 yards and three touchdowns on 21 of 30 passing, and Cameron said reading the play while also running to coverage was a problem for the Baler defense.
“We didn’t cover real well,” Cameron said simply. “That was a continuing theme from beginning to end, guys not running hard to coverage.
“But we did pound some of their guys, and I know a lot of their boys hadn’t been hit that hard. We played real hard and tough, and that’s the way we need to play.”
With all that said, the Balers (2-2) don’t have much going their way entering Friday night’s Tri-County Athletic League opener at Alisal (1-3). A tough loss to Palo Alto, a hot week of practice and what is expected to be a tougher opponent in Salinas coming the following week isn’t exactly the right mix.
But Cameron said practices this week have been going well, despite the excessive heat, while the team will be better prepared having experienced defeat just seven days prior.
And if the players have any thoughts of looking past Alisal, well, don’t.
“There guys play real hard and they always play to the finish,” Cameron said of the Trojans, who last week defeated Woodside 35-0 for their first victory of the season. “They will get a lot out of their guys, and we need to go out and play real hard. Heck, we got beat last week and this is a new season.”
Anchored by junior quarterback Michael Barron (29 of 57, 348 yards, 4 TD, 7 INT), who was named co-Sophomore of the Year a season ago, Alisal runs the extremes on offense, Cameron said. Everything from shotgun double-wide to three backs in the backfield, the Trojans often throw many different formations at their opponents, although remain a run-first football team.
Johnny Morales is their go-to back, and can boast a 7.1 yards-per-carry average through four games — he has 316 yards on 44 attempts. Meanwhile, Oscar Pearson has run for 152 yards on 32 attempts, and receiver Marcos Rosales has caught six balls for 54 yards.
Barron, though, has been known as the team’s do-everything in years past, lining up behind center, in the backfield as a running back and out toward the sideline as a wideout. Although this year, while the Alisal junior does have statistics recorded at both running back and receiver, Barron has done most of his damage as signal-caller.
“They’re not the team we played last week. Alisal doesn’t possess the football players Palo Alto has,” Cameron said. “But they play real hard and they play together as a team.”
