With an inexperienced team, players still made good showing
With an overall regular season record of 11-13, the San Benito
High School boys water polo team didn’t think it would even qualify
for the Central Coast Section playoffs let alone win a section
title
– which is why nobody wearing a Baler uniform was all that
surprised when the No. 12 seed Balers fell 14-3 to No. 5 seed Los
Altos in Tuesday’s opening round playoff action.
With an inexperienced team, players still made good showing
With an overall regular season record of 11-13, the San Benito High School boys water polo team didn’t think it would even qualify for the Central Coast Section playoffs let alone win a section title – which is why nobody wearing a Baler uniform was all that surprised when the No. 12 seed Balers fell 14-3 to No. 5 seed Los Altos in Tuesday’s opening round playoff action.
“It was really an honor just to get into CCS,” said Baler coach Tom Agan, whose team finished third in league play this year. “We knew it was going to be rough going up there. I think we might have actually played the CCS champions today.”
Although the Balers battled hard and played well all afternoon, the difference was the physically dominant lineup that Los Altos put in the pool – a lineup that was able to keep the Balers in check via its sheer size up front, superior strength and speed to the ball.
What resulted was a 7-0 Eagle lead by the end of the opening quarter that extended to 10-2 by halftime. The lead would have been more lopsided had Los Altos coach Ed Samuels not opted to pull his starters at that point.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Los Altos make it to the semifinals and possibly take the championship,” Agan said. “All of our players did a pretty good job today. As ugly as the score sounds, I felt that we looked pretty respectable out there. Their skill level beat us, not our poor play.”
Although the game was lopsided, the two Baler players that did manage to penetrate the Los Altos defense was driver Adam Rianda and two-meter hole set Jordan Schafer. Rianda scored a pair of goals in the losing effort and Schafer, the team’s leading scorer this year with 33 goals, scored the team’s other goal.
Without the Eagles starters in the lineup in the second half, play was much more nip-and-tuck.
In the third period, the Balers were outscored 3-1 and by only a single goal in the final quarter of play.
Considering that San Benito High, the league champions of a year ago, lost all of last year’s starters – which were all all-league players – to graduation, going as far as they did this year with such an inexperienced team, says a lot about Agan’s ability as a coach.
“We lost a lot of players and we were pretty young this year,” he said. “Maybe it was an okay year with what we had going in. Next year, we lose only three players to graduation so we should be in better shape for next season.”
In last weekend’s Tri County Athletic League championship tournament the Balers failed to repeat as league champions, and wound up finishing behind first-place Salinas and Carmel High, respectively.
The Baler girls’ varsity water polo team won the league title this year. It too earned a trip to the CCS playoffs this week. The Baler girls went into the tournament as the No. 6 seed and took on No. 11 seed Woodside in the opening round of the tournament on Wednesday afternoon after press time.
