It’s wild. It’s crazy. It’s tension packed. And it’s high drama.
It’s the Tri-County Athletic League season and it’s coming to a gym and a field near you.
With the holidays just now in the rear-view mirror, I’m sure you can attest to the enjoyment of a good, old-fashioned feast. At least your New Year’s resolutions can. And, when you get right down to it, a team’s season mirrors that fine meal quite closely.
Like all good feasts, the full course dinner of a team’s schedule begins with the preparation. Coaches and players spend the months preceding the start of any competition assembling all the ingredients and concocting a mouth-watering spread. As any good chef would attest, the time spent in the kitchen long before the guests arrive is the oft-overlooked grunt work that is so fundamental to the meal’s success.
Preseason games and tournaments are the hors d’oeuvres, the portion of the sports calendar that whets the appetite of both a team and its fans. The team uses these contests as character-building sessions–chances to develop its athletes’ talents into success for the squad as a whole–while the loyal backers get a taste of their local teams with a full season of action to follow.
But now it’s time for the main course. The meat and potatoes. League play.
With soccer and wrestling already under way and basketball set to tip off, the TCAL winter sports offerings are finally upon us. And not a moment too soon.
You see, just like the coq au vin, everything revolves around the entree of the league season.
It’s as if a switch goes off and everything goes into overdrive.
“It’s more physical, more intense, more demanding,” said San Benito boys basketball head coach John Becerra.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of league play is that teams oppose familiar foes, often playing each other twice each season. By nature, an athletic league is a regional grouping of schools–a collection that breeds and enhances natural rivalries. San Benito-Gilroy contests, no matter the sport, just have a different feel to them than, say, a San Benito-Homestead game does. When a player takes the court or field against a childhood friend who happens to attend school in a neighboring town, the stakes instantly become that much higher.
This is not to suggest that playing uncommon opponent is devoid of significance. Quite the contrary. Just ask the Gilroy girls basketball team. The Mustangs recently competed in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Arizona, a setting in which they got to test their mettle against some of the nation’s elite teams. But don’t think for a second that stealing itself for the start of the league season wasn’t on Gilroy’s mind.
“We went there with the specific purpose of getting better and being well prepared for play in the TCAL,” said Mustangs head coach Keri Williams, whose team will get an early return on its progress as it visits San Benito in the league opener tomorrow.
The importance of league contests isn’t limited to the so-called ‘team sports.’ San Benito wrestling head coach Matt Olejnik says league competition offers a benefit that tournaments cannot.
“Dual [league] meets offer the opportunity to have success as an individual,” said Olejnik, “but the whole team can have success, too. They are one of the more exciting aspects of the sport.”
Fortunately for South Valley residents, the TCAL has historically been one of the stronger members of the Central Coast Section.
“It’s one of the best, most complete leagues out there,” said San Benito athletic director Tod Thatcher. “Sport in and sport out, the TCAL is up there. As far as public school leagues go, it’s right up with the best of them.”
The teams left standing at the end of a grueling, TCAL season have earned more than their stripes. They’ve landed a trip to the postseason–the CCS playoffs.
To revisit our fine-dining analogy, every memorable meal is polished off by a delicious dessert. The exquisite ending to a team’s season is, of course, a berth in the postseason. And, given that a CCS invitation is only possible with a strong league showing, TCAL games take on pressure-packed aura.
With so much riding on the outcome of these games, it’s no wonder that coaches drill the importance of winning league games into their players heads.
“Mentally, psychologically, they know [league] is more important,” said Becerra of his Haybalers. “We’re going in to win league. That’s the primary reason we play.”
So, if you like your action fast and furious with a lot riding on each game, check out the TCAL winter season as it unfolds. If you need any further convincing on just how seriously the teams and fans take league play, swing by Gilroy’s gym tonight for the grudge match between San Benito and the host Mustangs. But get there early because you won’t be alone.
It’s TCAL time and what an exciting thing that is.
Let the games begin.
