The San Benito swim teams defeated visiting Gilroy on Friday to
get a solid foothold on second place in the league behind Live
Oak.
The San Benito swim teams defeated visiting Gilroy on Friday to get a solid foothold on second place in the league behind Live Oak.
The varsity boys team eked out a 90-87 victory despite being without two of its best swimmers – senior Robbie Shattuck and junior Logan Kratzer, who were both traveling during the spring break.
Coach Leif Nordstrom knew that the meet would come down to the wire.
On paper, he had his team winning by the narrowest of margins. But he wasn’t counting on a strong showing from the Gilroy 200 free relay team to just touch out San Benito for the win.
“I knew it would be that close,” Nordstrom said. “I knew we had to create the perfect arrangement to have a chance for the victory. Everyone knew full well what we had to do.”
A couple of the swimmers asked Nordstrom after the loss in the 200 free relay event if they still had a chance to win.
“I told them we still had a chance, but we would need one or two people to step it up. And we did,” Nordstrom said.
JV swimmers junior Zach Bainter, junior Alex Marks and freshman James Schafer filled the spots that were left on the roster.
“I moved them up just for the event, not really expecting much,” Nordstrom said. “But they factored into the scoring, which was more than I expected.”
Freshman Ryan Drogemuller improved his time by three seconds in the breast stroke to narrowly win.
Senior Christian Smith swam a 5:08 in the 500 freestyle event – a Central Coast Section qualifying time.
The JV team lost to Gilroy, 57-40. The Balers had just three swimmers after having the others called up.
“If we would have been at full force, we could have won the JV as well,” Nordstrom said. “It makes it difficult with only three players because you can’t swim any of the relays.”
The next meet will be a make-up meet against North Salinas on April 13. The team will have 6-8 a.m. practices all this week.
