Team expects to be a lower seed at section finals
The San Benito High tennis team has made history. Despite losing
to Salinas in the regular season finale last week and although they
did not have a singles or doubles champion come out of this week’s
league finals, the Balers still earned the title of co-champions of
the Tri County Athletic League for the first time courtesy of their
11-1 record.
Team expects to be a lower seed at section finals
The San Benito High tennis team has made history. Despite losing to Salinas in the regular season finale last week and although they did not have a singles or doubles champion come out of this week’s league finals, the Balers still earned the title of co-champions of the Tri County Athletic League for the first time courtesy of their 11-1 record.
The Balers wound up the season tied with Salinas but became the only team from the TCAL to advance to the post season after winning the third overall tiebreaker that determined which team would represent the league in the Central Coast Section tournament.
At tomorrow’s CCS seeding meeting the Balers will find out which team they will face first and when and where they will face them in the CCS tournament, which gets under way next week.
“We’re probably going to be a lower seed in the tournament,” Balers coach Ed Cecena said. “There are a lot of power houses from teams from the San Jose area like St. Francis, (Archbishop) Mitty and Monte Vista. They have players that are nationally ranked, but it’s going to be fun to compete against them, and see if we can knock somebody off.”
In Monday’s TCAL tournament each team was allowed to enter two singles and two doubles teams into the year-end event.
The Baler team that advanced the farthest was the No. 1 doubles team of Elena Fata and Rachel Maheu. After receiving a first round bye, Fata and Maheu beat the Notre Dame team of Sara Plymale and Shannon McIssaac 6-2, 2-6, 10-7 in the quarters before ousting Salinas’ Audra Bell and Shelby Webber in the semifinals.
In the finals, the momentum stopped after Salinas’ head coach opted to make a doubles team out of his number 3 and 4 singles players, paving way for Fata and Maheu’s 6-3, 7-5 loss in the championship.
“Those two had a great season for us,” Cecena said. “Prior to losing in the league finals they had lost only one time all year.”
The other Baler players that competed in the league final were the No. 2 doubles team of Crystal Perriera and Marissa Ibarra as well as No. 1 singles player Amanda Marshall and No. 2 singles player Kaitlyn O’Keefe.
O’Keefe, who normally is the team’s No. 3 singles player, earned a trip to the tournament after ousting her teammate Yumi Chang, the regular No. 2 singles player, in a challenge match just days before the tournament.
O’Keefe lost 6-3, 6-2 in opening round action. Marshall fell in the quarterfinals to North Salinas’ Laura Sanchez 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 and Ibarra and Perriera fell 5-7, 7-6, 10-6 in opening round action as well to Notre Dame’s April Harvey and Brooke Caracioli.
Regardless of how his team performs at CCS, Cecena is elated by his team’s history-making effort in 2007.
“We had a fantastic season,” he said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better year. Everyone just kept on getting better and better. The team chemistry was just excellent.”
