The San Benito High girls golf team, with a new coach and home
course, will experience some sweeping changes during the 2011
season.
Regardless of those changes, the team fully expects to improve
from last year and continue their success.
The San Benito High girls golf team, with a new coach and home course, will experience some sweeping changes during the 2011 season.
Regardless of those changes, the team fully expects to improve from last year and continue their success.
The season of change started early in the summer for the golf team when coach Chris Branon announced he was leaving. In July, English teacher – and former Baler golfer – Corryn Martin was hired to become the new coach.
The new coach worried some of the golfers, but after the first practice Monday, that quickly changed.
“I was a little skeptical when I heard,” senior Shannon Cornick said. “From what I’ve seen I like her a lot.”
Martin hopes to use her experience of playing for the team, from 2001 to 2004, in her coaching, she said. The English teacher always wanted to become a head coach and was looking forward to the opportunity and the new year.
“I’m excited,” she said. “We have a lot of great girls and a very good team.”
Martin expects to lean heavily on some of the team’s five seniors and four-year players, she said.
One of those leaders, McKenna Bernosky, said it was important for her to get the team together because of all the new faces and players.
“The team seems really different,” she said. “We have a lot of new people. This is going to be a different season but in a better way.”
The team’s energy was one of the biggest differences, she said.
“I think the whole energy of the team is better than last year,” Bernosky said. “We are just full of energy.”
The senior attributed the change to the new coach, Martin.
“She isn’t just a coach, she is part of the team,” Bernosky said. “She is easier to approach and that will help us improve.”
And overall improvement – helping each girl get better over the season – is exactly what Martin wants to do.
“I want to help each of them get better,” she said.
As a team, the goal is get everyone a spot in the Central Coast Section championship tournament at the end of the year, Bernosky said. To do that, the team expects to play more as a team.
“It’s important to do things together – as a team,” she said.
Bernosky plans on holding team dinners to get everyone acquainted with each other, she said.
But part of the new year will be getting used to the new course.
The golf team will also now practice and compete at San Juan Oaks Golf Club, switching from Ridgemark Golf and Country Club. The switch will force the golfers to get used to a new course but in the long run it will improve their overall skill, Martin said.
“We need to practice here a little more, but this course will be great for the girls,” Martin said.
