Since compiling a 2-3 record at a water polo tournament in
Clovis to begin this season, the San Benito Haybalers have won 13
straight matches. Not bad for a team that didn’t even have a hole
set at the start of the year.
HOLLISTER
Since compiling a 2-3 record at a water polo tournament in Clovis to begin this season, the San Benito Haybalers have won 13 straight matches.
Not bad for a team that didn’t even have a hole set at the start of the year.
“They’re the best team I’ve had,” said head coach Hayley Vandercook, who is in her third season coaching the Balers. “As a team, they work the best together.”
“Team” is the operative word.
Although Vandercook opted to place Sarina Schekenburger as the team’s primary hole set — which last year was anchored by Amanda Virak and her 43 goals and 51 assists — the entire team has rotated through the key offensive position based on specific set plays.
And what has resulted is a well balanced attack that doesn’t focus on one specific player. Although Caitlin Schafer leads the team in goals scored — she has 37 goals in the last nine matches for San Benito — Vandercook sees the team’s all-around offense as the perfect complement to the team’s previously strong defense.
At 15-3 overall, the Balers are off to their best start under Vandercook and their best start since 2007, when San Benito earned the Tri-County Athletic League title.
“Without realizing it, you tend to rely on one player like Kelsey Russell and Amanda Virak,” Vandercook said of two of San Benito’s top scorers in recent years. “Schafer is sort of that, but she’s a utility player more than she’s a specialized player. Caitlin will be the first to pass the ball if she doesn’t have a shot.”
Last weekend at the Carmel Invitational, the sophomore Schafer, who had 41 goals through all of last year, scored 10 times to help lead San Benito to its second straight tournament championship in as many weekends.
Hannah Smith led nine different scorers with 12 goals, meanwhile, as the Balers defeated three opponents by a 41-8 margin — a 15-2 win over Santa Catalina, a 16-2 victory against Salinas, and a 10-4 win against Homestead.
In TCAL action on Wednesday, where the Balers are 5-0, San Benito defeated Monterey 20-6.
“The nice thing is that they’re working so hard and they’re all working to learn some other position,” Vandercook said. “Everybody has had to learn to take on multiple positions in the pool.
“But the defense is what’s helping us win. They’re just shutting everyone else down and the offense is coming easily.”
Schafer and Jeanett Rodriguez are the team’s pick-pocketers on defense — both compiled seven steals apiece during recent matches against Salinas and Homestead — while Lauren Lango has shined at hole defense.
“She’s been phenomenal,” Vandercook said.
So far, the TCAL is shaping into a two-team race between San Benito and Gilroy, with neither team heads-and-shoulders above the other. The two teams met up at the Monterey Bay Shootout last month in Watsonville, where the Balers mounted a fourth-quarter comeback to steal an 8-7 victory, as well as the tournament title.
San Benito and Gilroy will meet again in league play on Oct. 20 in Hollister.
Vandercook feels Carmel and Stevenson could also pose problems down the road, however. After all, it was the Stevenson Pirates that provided the then-second-seeded Balers with an 8-6 loss at last year’s TCAL Tournament, placing San Benito fourth overall and out of the Central Coast Section playoffs as a result.
“As I’ve learned the last two years,” Vandercook said, “anything can happen in the TCAL Tournament.”
