San Benito crushes Watsonville 25-3; plays Thursday in
semifinals
Hollister – The San Benito High girls water polo team has its sights set on the Tri-County Athletic League championship game and most likely a rematch against Santa Catalina.
But first the ‘Balers need to get there.
They took the first step toward reaching Saturday’s title game by routing Watsonville 25-3 Tuesday in the first round of the TCAL tournament.
Junior Katie Buzzetta led San Benito with six goals, and 10 different ‘Balers found the cage in the lopsided win.
“Everybody got a lot of playing time,” San Benito coach Lacey Sutton said.
The second-seeded ‘Balers advanced to play in the semifinals Thursday at 4:30pm at Santa Catalina. A win would put San Benito in the title game Saturday at 5pm.
Tuesday’s action against the ninth-seeded Wildcats never was much of a contest.
Watsonville opened the scoring with a goal 1:11 into the first quarter, but 14 seconds later ‘Balers’ senior Stephanie Rodriguez scored the equalizer.
Sophomore Shelli Reed gave San Benito a 2-1 lead less than two minutes into the contest and the ‘Balers opened up a 9-1 lead before the Wildcats responded in the final minute of the first quarter.
Ali Blake, a recent junior varsity call-up, punched in a goal in the closing seconds of the first to give San Benito a big 10-2 lead with three quarters remaining.
Watsonville scored its final goal of the game early in the second quarter, but Buzzetta and junior Jayme Telles each had two goals in the period and the ‘Balers pushed the lead to 18-3 by halftime.
San Benito slowed down the scoring a bit in the second half, but its defense prevented the Wildcats from getting on the board again. The ‘Balers stretched the lead to 23-3 at the end of three quarters, and two fourth quarter goals from senior Audra Brown wrapped up the scoring.
Brown, Demi Gatrell and Jarae Tanner all had three goals for San Benito. Rodriguez, Blake, Telles and Kirsten Palm all finished with two goals and Reed and Lila Yoldi each had one goal.
Sutton said the rout gave the ‘Balers an opportunity to work on moving the ball around.
“We tried to work on our ball-handling skills,” she said.
The real test is expected to be Saturday against a Santa Catalina team that beat San Benito 14-8 in the team’s earlier meeting during the league season.
“We’re pretty ready,” Sutton said of a potential rematch. “We’ve got a new game plan.”
