Girls’ team sees improvement as season continues
Jenny Glosser shot a 52 against Gilroy. Jordan Davies carded a
46 against Everett Alvarez. Yumi Kimura recorded a 46 against
Salinas.
Three different players. Three different opponents.
It appears in any given match, any given member of the San
Benito girls golf team will rise to the occasion.
There is no No. 1 player.
Girls’ team sees improvement as season continues
Jenny Glosser shot a 52 against Gilroy. Jordan Davies carded a 46 against Everett Alvarez. Yumi Kimura recorded a 46 against Salinas.
Three different players. Three different opponents.
It appears in any given match, any given member of the San Benito girls golf team will rise to the occasion.
There is no No. 1 player.
“Each week, each match, somebody is coming to the [front],” coach Chris Branon said. “Again, I go back to the word ‘competition.’ It’s who wants to be No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, as based on the scores … They’re so evenly matched.”
With a 14-girl roster – so large, in fact, that the Lady Balers are enjoying a junior varsity team this year – San Benito uses its practices and previous matches to develop a competitive ladder.
There is no No. 1, but there is a guarantee to be one from the select six who compete at the varsity level. It changes from match to match and, of course, you’ve got to earn it.
Glosser said the team has qualifying matches during practice where players break up into groups and play four holes, with the top six scores earning a varsity spot for the next match.
And with a score of 50 or lower as an individual in the varsity match, players can automatically punch their ticket to the next varsity date as well – kind of like Survivor.]
The Lady Balers have already broken 200 this season, which was their original team goal at the beginning of the year, and Branon feels part of the reason for this is the competitive nature during these qualifying matches.
There are so many girls for so few spots that the drive and determination just to make varsity every match carries over into the varsity match itself.
“We’re all working hard,” Glosser said. “When we played Salinas, we we’re definitely trying to shoot our best score, and we did shoot our best score. So even after qualifying, we really got competitive once we got to the match, too.”
It took just two matches for San Benito to break their season goal when they shot a 200 against Everett Alvarez on Sept. 22, an 18-stroke improvement from the team’s previous match against Gilroy. One week later against Salinas, San Benito improved once again when they shot a team score of 192.
“And I think we’re gonna get better,” Kimura said. “I think our team has a lot of potential, and a lot of people have a lot of passion for golf … I think if we work hard enough, we can be one of the top TCAL [teams].”
Although no official league standings have been released, the Lady Balers are about in the middle of the pack, behind top dogs Stevenson and Santa Catalina, as well as Salinas and Pacific Grove.
But such a low score so early in the season led Branon to believe the Lady Balers could be shooting in the mid- to low-40s consistently by the end of the year. It’ll take time, of course, and Branon is trying to relay the importance of the short game.
“They’re working hard,” said Branon, who credited assistant coaches John Souza and Hillary Williams. “Each one of these girls is gonna hit the ball 150 yards, 200 yards (off the tee) … But an area that is key in any golf game is inside of 100 yards.”
San Benito’s 192 at Salinas included a couple of players who three-putted five times. If each player shaved four strokes off their score, Branon said, that’s 24 strokes and a victory over the Cowboys.
“We walk away and beat Salinas, but the short game has got to get you there,” Branon said. “So that’s really what we’re gonna work on this season.”
For a team without seniors, Branon will have this year and next to instill the importance of the short game into his players, and he’s hoping to see more of a focus put into the off-season workouts, where swings can be tweaked and the learning curve can disappear.
San Benito’s latest goal now is a team score of 185.
“We’re going big,” Davies said.
Said Branon, “It’s won or lost on the green.”
