San Benito eases past Bulldogs after big win against Live Oak
last week; Salinas to visit next
Morgan Hill – The Sobrato swimming team proved to be no match for San Benito yesterday afternoon in a Tri-County Athletic League matchup in Morgan Hill. Both the Haybalers girls and boys teams dominated the Bulldogs – almost sweeping the entire meet’s events – as the San Benito girls won 116-44 and the boys prevailed 121-20.
“I was shocked at how small their team is,” said San Benito girls coach Stephanie Pursley. “There were a couple of good races. Our team was mostly working for CCS qualifying times.”
The San Benito girls (3-1 TCAL) had several individual swimmers qualify for the Central Coast Section meet, along with the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Stephanie Rodriguez, Katie Buzzetta, Lacey Larson and Shelli Reid, who finished with a time of 3:55.27. Reid also qualified for CCS with her time in the 500-yard freestyle (5:23.36) and now has CCS-worthy times in every event she has raced in this season.
The Haybalers have had 10 girls already qualify for CCS, in addition to all of their relay teams.
Reid also had a first-place finish in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.19), while teammate Buzzetta finished first in the 50-yard freestyle (27.13 seconds) and the 100-yard freestyle (58.78 seconds). Rodriguez had an individual first-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:08.18 and came in third place in the 200-yard IM (2:39.56). Valerie Nicolaysen had a first-place finish for San Benito in the 200-yard IM (2:27.15) and Jayme Telles won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:00.19).
“The top girls performers from the meet were freshmen Shelli Reid and Lacey Larson, as well as Katie Buzzetta and Stephanie Rodriguez,” said Pursley. “My team is mostly made up of freshmen, but the older kids have taken the younger kids in and they’re doing really well. I’m very proud of them.”
The ‘Baler boys (4-0 TCAL) had one new CCS qualifying time in the meet as Blane Curtice won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:50.70, who also captured first place in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.73). Curtice competed in two first-place relay teams – the 200 IM (1:50.01) along with David Smith, Ryne Drogemuller and Joel Smith; and the 200 freestyle (1:38.95) along with J. Smith, D. Smith and James Schafer.
“Sobrato’s team is a couple years from being competitive,” said Balers boys coach Leif Nordstrom. “I chose this meet to swim some boys in events they usually don’t swim in.”
The San Benito boys team also had its 400-yard freestyle relay team of Steven Shattuck, Rory Bloch, D. Smith and Brandon Drogemuller win first place with a time of 4:04.35. D. Smith finished first in the 200 IM individual event (2:12.47) and J. Smith won the 100-yard butterfly (1:00.83). Teammates R. Drogemuller won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:09.74) and B. Drogemuller finished first in the 100-yard freestyle (54.59 seconds). Shattuck completed the 500-yard freestyle in 6:08.15 for a first-place finish and John Kaplanis finished the 50-yard freestyle in second place with a time of 24.82 seconds.
“I don’t know if we expected to be doing this well in TCAL,” said Nordstrom. “Last week we went [against] Live Oak and beat them. Live Oak is always one of the top teams and we really stepped it up. There weren’t a whole lot of time improvements in this meet because of the effort we put in last week against Live Oak.”
The Haybalers next take on the tough Salinas Cowboys in Hollister on Thursday.
