Co-league title hopes slim, but Balers have sights set on
gaining playoff spot
The San Benito High girls’ soccer team is fighting for its
playoff life. Any Baler trip to the postseason dance will most
likely be determined in today’s 3:30 p.m. home showdown with the
visiting third-place Vikings of North Salinas High.
A win today will give the Balers a stranglehold on second place
in the Tri County Athletic League with just a pair of games left in
the regular season.
Co-league title hopes slim, but Balers have sights set on gaining playoff spot
The San Benito High girls’ soccer team is fighting for its playoff life. Any Baler trip to the postseason dance will most likely be determined in today’s 3:30 p.m. home showdown with the visiting third-place Vikings of North Salinas High.
A win today will give the Balers a stranglehold on second place in the Tri County Athletic League with just a pair of games left in the regular season.
“Only the top two teams will go to the Central Coast Section playoffs,” Baler coach Mike Schurig said. “We tied North Salinas the first time we played them even though we dominated the game. We’re going to really need to beat them on Friday (today).”
Earlier in the week, the Balers had ever-so-slim hopes of repeating as co-league champions with Gilroy High. But those hopes were dashed after the Balers fell 4-0 to the first-place Mustangs in a game that was moved to Gilroy after it was determined that the field at San Benito High was too saturated from the recent rains.
In that game forward Ariana Vera proved to be a one-person wrecking ball as she scored the first three goals of the game for Gilroy to put things out of reach.
“On their first few goals she [Vera] was really fast and able to get behind us. Once she was past us, she put it past Emily [Key],” Schurig said. “The third time she scored on a rebound that Emily had stopped at first.”
The loss moved the Balers to 4-3-1 in league as of the Pinnacle’s press time and to 9-5-1 overall.
“I would say that Gilroy is one of the best teams that we’ve seen and one of the best that I’ve ever seen at Gilroy High,” Schurig said. “They are definitely the best team in the TCAL. Now we’re just going to try and hold on and be the second best team in the TCAL.”
Throughout the contest with Gilroy the Mustangs were able to prevent the Balers from getting the ball to leading scorer Sophie Coelho at the most opportune times, which was vital to San Benito’s game plan and success on the field.
“Gilroy is just good. They have a lot of fast people on their team,” Schurig said. “They are fast in the middle – so fast that they made our center midfielders afraid to commit on offense.”
With a win today, the Balers should be a lock to make the playoffs, although they would be a relatively low seed and would most likely be forced to play all of their games on the road.
“First, we want to just get into the playoffs,” Schurig said. “After that, we’ll see how far we can go.”
