For seven minutes Thursday, host San Benito hung with Salinas in
their Tri-County Athletic League boys water polo match. Then the
floodgates opened.
The Cowboys reeled off 10 straight goals over the course of the
next two periods and the Balers were left with a mind-boggling 15-7
defeat. Haybaler head coach Tom Agan, who has coached 13 years at
the school, wrapped up his evaluation of the Cowboys with this.
For seven minutes Thursday, host San Benito hung with Salinas in their Tri-County Athletic League boys water polo match. Then the floodgates opened.
The Cowboys reeled off 10 straight goals over the course of the next two periods and the Balers were left with a mind-boggling 15-7 defeat. Haybaler head coach Tom Agan, who has coached 13 years at the school, wrapped up his evaluation of the Cowboys with this.
“That’s the best water polo team I’ve ever seen out of the town of Salinas,” said Agan. “They have more speed than us, are bigger than us and handled the ball better than us. They outclassed us.”
The Balers (5-5, 1-1) fought back from 2-0 to tie the score on a skillful shot from Zach Bainter with 1:10 left in the first period. The Cowboys Tim Burke regained the momentum with a unique throw-the-ball-up-in-the-air-and-slap-it-while-in-mid-swim shot with two seconds to go in the period.
From then on, it was all Cowboys (6-1, 2-0), who ran off five goals in the second quarter and four more in the third, smothering the Balers on the defensive end. The Balers
yielded another goal in the fourth before Lucas Zepeda broke the drought at the 5:43 mark on a dish from Joel Smith. Zepeda tallied two more goals for 14-5, then assisted Bainter for 14-6. Sean Russell added San Benito’s final goal of the afternoon.
Zepeda, the Balers leading scorer, gave credit to the Cowboys, but thought his team should have played better.
“We were flat,” said Zepeda. “We didn’t play heads-up out there. Salinas played good defense. They had some big, strong swimmers out there.”
“We were conscious of where Zepeda was in the pool,” said Cowboys coach Gary Figueroa. “We knew he had potential to score. We did a good job of playing perimeter defense without fouling. We played great team defense (today). I didn’t know what to expect because we hadn’t seen San Benito yet.”
Agan could look at the bright side.
“I want my kids to improve every game,” said Agan. “If they’re taking what we practice on and make use of it in the game, then everything’s o.k. We hope to give Salinas a better game next time we play them, but we’ll have to see.”
Baler bits: The Balers are in tough at the Scott Roche Invitational today when they take on polo power Menlo School at 12 p.m. Then it will be either Palo Alto or Mitty at 3 p.m. San Benito plays Saturday at 9 a.m. as the tourney continues…..The Cowboys Greg Sandys played well in goal and finished with 10 saves. Balers goalie Nick Dain had seven saves, two outstanding ones in the fourth quarter…..The Balers don’t return to T-CAL polo until Oct. 8 when they entertain Monterey.
JV score: San Benito 11, Salinas 6. Alex Marks played all four quarters at goalie for the Balers and had 12 saves. Blaine Curtice led the Baler JV’s with four goals. Rory Bloch had two goals. Scoring one each were Duffy Barrett, Josh Ward, Curtis Wall and Steve Larson.
Girls water polo: Derek Kisling’s varsity girls won a critical match in Salinas, knocking off the Cowboys 9-6. The Balers are in first in the Tri-County Athletic League at 3-0 and are 4-4 overall.
“Jordan Telles defended well and played smart water polo,” said Kisling. “Kathryn Adamek was awesome in our man-ups. Jenna DeCoite drew a ton of kickouts for us.”
The Baler girls are in the Valley Christian Classic this afternoon against Los Gatos. The tournament ends on Saturday.
