Baseball team played strong all season
They didn’t win the Central Coast Section title, but that
doesn’t mean the San Benito High School baseball team isn’t holding
its head high right now.
Baseball team played strong all season
They didn’t win the Central Coast Section title, but that doesn’t mean the San Benito High School baseball team isn’t holding its head high right now.
In fact, the Baler baseball team has plenty of reasons to be proud of its accomplishments in 2007, despite losing to top-seed Valley Christian 6-2 in the championship game May 26 in San Jose.
One is that San Benito High advanced farther than any other public school in the Division I playoffs, a division that included five of the powerhouse private schools from the West Catholic Athletic League.
The other is that the Balers, despite early season concerns about the team’s battery, managed to become co-league champions of the Tri County Athletic League when many pundits had them projected to finish somewhere around third or fourth place at the start of the year.
“We really had an outstanding year. We had 29 wins. That was the second most in the entire CCS,” said Michael Luna, San Benito High School’s head coach. “We always talk about playing in the last game of the season, and this year was no different in that goal. And, we were able to play in that game. Unfortunately, we came up against an outstanding ball club in Valley Christian.”
The Balers were the first team to light up the scoreboard on Saturday after Zach Canez picked up an RBI single to give the visiting Balers a 1-0 lead over the tournament favorites.
San Benito then extended the lead to 2-0 in the third after Brian Haggett was intentionally walked with two outs. Haggett then scored on a single by Kevin Medeiros.
Unfortunately for the Balers and their fans the lead would be short-lived as the Warriors got to Baler starter Michael Garcia and tied the game up in the bottom half of the inning. From there, Valley Christian picked up three more runs in the fourth and one more in the sixth to seal the victory.
“If we could have held them scoreless in the third, it might have changed things a bit because it would have put the pressure on them and given them some doubts,” Luna said. “They hit the ball real well though, and Michael (Garcia) struggled to get some of his off-speed pitches over the plate for strikes.”
Despite the setbacks, the Balers did manage to put runners on second and third with just a single out in the top half of the sixth, but unfortunately, a double-play ball that ended with an out at the home plate nullified the rally.
In all, the Balers had six hits in the contest and didn’t make a single error on defense.
“I’m sure that some people would say there were other schools that were just as good as or better than us,” Luna said. “But I would put my team up against any team out there. We competed in big games throughout the year, and we competed until the last out. One phrase that we used all season long was that we were not going to go away. We would battle right until the end.”
The Balers will lose five seniors to graduation next year, including right-handed pitchers Medeiros and Garcia. But with 10 juniors and three sophomores coming back, including pitching ace Canez and homerun leader Haggett, Luna believes his team will be solid next season as well.
“I believe we’ll be better next year,” he said. “For one, these guys will all have one more year of varsity experience under their belts. Most of our pitching staff is coming back and playing a high level team like Valley Christian in the playoffs will also help. I think we’ll get to the final game again with some luck and by playing well.”
