Top-seeded Baler volleyball team plays tomorrow
The Central Coast Section playoffs don’t even wrap up for
another week and already the San Benito High boys water polo team
has made history.
Top-seeded Baler volleyball team plays tomorrow
The Central Coast Section playoffs don’t even wrap up for another week and already the San Benito High boys water polo team has made history.
On Tuesday afternoon at home the No. 7 seed Balers made past the first round for the first time ever courtesy of their 17-4 shellacking of the tournament’s No. 10 seed Lynbrook High.
As a result of their impressive win the Balers will next face No. 2 seed Menlo-Atherton in the section quarterfinals, which take place tomorrow at Lynbrook High School at a time yet to be determined.
Baler coach Tom Agan attributed the win to his team’s ability to step up its defensive play.
“It didn’t hurt us to play them at home either, but I don’t think the outcome today would have been any different at their pool,” Agan said. “The guys were outstanding on defense. The defense is what generated a lot of offense for us.”
In a typical game the Balers will pick up roughly 10 steals. On Tuesday San Benito High had 20 against Lynbrook.
“We were just pretty pumped up out there,” Agan said. “We stuck with our game plan and did a good job. I’d give the defense and A and the offense a B or a B-.”
Despite Agan’s offensive concerns the senior-laden Baler team showed an ability to spread the ball around and get a number of players involved in the action.
Leading the way in scoring was Baler two-meter hole player Dave Smith, who led all scorers with four goals. Rory Bloch was second for San Benito High with three goals.
Senior James Shafer, Blaine Curtis and Jason Andrade each scored a pair of goals in the winning effort and three others had a goal a piece to round out the Baler scoring frenzy.
Defensively the Balers were able to keep Lynbrook in check thanks to the stellar play of two-meter defender Greg Valenzuela, who broke up a number of plays in front of the Baler cage, and the solid efforts of Matt Thorpe, who blocked six shots in the contest.
“Greg really stepped his all-around game up this year. He put a lot of effort into it this year, and even competed in Hungary this summer, which has helped him a lot. His efforts paid off today,” Agan said. “Lynbrook is a good team but they really didn’t have much offense today because we shut them down so effectively.”
With Lynbrook behind them now all of the focus at practice today will be preparing for Menlo-Atherton – a team that finished the regular season with a 16-10 record.
“They are a pretty solid team,” said Agan as he looked ahead to the quarterfinals. “We’ll have to play our best game of the season to get past them, but it’s not totally out of the question. It’s a stretch but this team has it if they want it. We can go all the way.”
If the Balers were to advance all the way to the championship game they would most likely face the top-seeded Bellarmine Bells in the finals – a perennial CCS champion that is always ranked in the top five in the nation.
While the odds of beating the Bells for a CCS championship are stacked against them, Agan has some solace in knowing that his team, although it lost 11-3 to Bellarmine at an early season tournament, his team did play them to a tie through the first half.
“We can do it. The thing is we need to play great polo,” he said. “When we play together as a team we are as good as any team that I’ve ever had.”
In other CCS action, the No. 8 seed Baler girls water polo team played No. 9 seed Presentation High School on Wednesday after press time at San Benito High. If the Baler girls won that game they would then travel to Mountain View on Saturday where they would face top-seeded St. Francis High School at a time to be determined.
While both Baler water polo teams had to compete in difficult first round games, the No. 1 seed San Benito High girls volleyball team had the luxury of having a first round bye thanks to its 28-7 overall record. On Saturday the Haybalers will face either No. 8 seed Gilroy or No. 9 seed Andrew Hill at 11 a.m. at North Salinas High School.
