How ’bout them Lady ‘Balers! The once seemingly improbable postseason trip of San Benito High School’s girls’ basketball team has been the buzz on campus and in the community over the past week.
From their Central Coast Section championship victory over Carlmont last week to their dispatching of McClatchy in the first round of the NorCal playoffs on Tuesday, the Balers’ frenetic on-court style has energized a fan base that has always been loyal to local sports.
I am writing this on Thursday morning, without knowing the outcome of last night’s game against top-seeded Berkeley, but it doesn’t matter: This team has made its mark, and anything after the league and section championships is gravy.
It’s refreshing to see the community rally behind a girls’ team. The red wave of ‘Baler fans is used to seeing our football team battling for CCS supremacy, as we routinely outnumber our opponents in the stands.
Last year as the baseball team reached the CCS title game, the Hollister side of San Jose Municipal Stadium was packed. The ‘Baler softball team is the two-time defending CCS champion and the volleyball team won a title last year and made the finals this year. The wrestling team took second at CCS recently and sent four wrestlers to state. The ‘Baler boys’ basketball team won 20 games and made the playoffs. These are good times.
But the focus right now is the March Madness created by the girls’ basketball team. And Coach David Kaplansky sets the tone.
Nothing is more illustrative of that than his mad dash off the court as the ‘Balers took a lead into half-time of last Friday’s CCS title game. Kaplansky bolted for the locker room at the San Jose State Event Center, smiling and cheering as he knew his team was on the verge of a title. The pen for his coach’s clipboard flew out of his pocket as he out-sprinted his team.
The guy has passion.
He leads his bench in chants of “De-Fense! (clap, clap) De-Fense,” and encourages the crowd to do the same. He barks out plays and calls for screens and defensive shifts from buzzer to buzzer. If he’s wearing a jacket or sweater at the start of a game, it likely will be on the ground by the second quarter.
“It’s exciting,” he said during a break from teaching P.E. classes at Spring Grove School yesterday. “The girls have taken (the fan support) in and it has motivated them. They don’t want to let people down at this point. The support has been so uplifting.”
Kaplansky knows what’s it’s like to leave everything on the court, as the saying goes. He was an undersized guard by college standards, yet the Baler alumnus made the team at San Diego State as a walk-on.
He then coached the Baler boys for four years and won at least 21 games each year, culminating with a league title in 2003-04. He left the job after that and has spent recent years teaching and coaching junior high basketball, which gave him a fresh perspective.
“I’m coaching the same way, sticking to my same philosophy and running the same plays,” said Kaplansky, who is also an assistant coach with the football team. “But I’m a lot more patient than I was the first time around. I’m a little bit more under control.”
Kaplansky proudly pointed out that after losing count of how many technical fouls he was given as coach of the boys’ team, he has been given none by referees this year.
From beginning the year with the goal of having “a competitive preseason” and “being in the hunt at the end of the year so we could be in a position to play for something,” Kaplansky has instead helped raise the bar for local girls’ hoops.
“The reason I took this job is that I’ve seen a lot of success in other girls’ sports in this community,” he said.
Now, he’s a part of that success. And the girls he is coaching to formerly improbable heights are setting the standard for the ones that will follow them.
