After narrowly defeating Fremont on Tuesday night to open the
Central Coast Section Championships, No. 10 San Benito could not
keep up with host and No. 7-seed Homestead on Thursday night
— Mustang guard Momir Gataric, especially — as the visiting
Balers dropped an 81-54 contest in the Division I second round.
CUPERTINO
After narrowly defeating Fremont on Tuesday night to open the Central Coast Section Championships, No. 10 San Benito could not keep up with host and No. 7-seed Homestead on Thursday night — Mustang guard Momir Gataric, especially — as the visiting Balers dropped an 81-54 contest in the Division I second round.
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The sizeable loss equaled the most points San Benito allowed this season, surpassing the 79 points it gave up during a loss to Salinas on Feb. 11. Furthermore, the loss eliminates the Balers from postseason play.
It is the second year in a row the team has fallen in the CCS second round.
Standing in its way on Thursday night was Gataric and the Homestead Mustangs (16-9), which blew the game open in the third quarter.
Leading 36-25 at halftime, Homestead outscored San Benito in the third quarter by a 19-9 margin and controlled an insurmountable 21-point lead entering the final period.
“The story was their star, Gataric. He’s a stud,” San Benito head coach Tracy Carpenter said. “He killed us.”
Gataric, a 6-foot-4 guard, scored 19 of his game-high 29 points in the first half to lead all scorers.
“And we couldn’t stop the guy,” Carpenter said.
San Benito implemented a box-and-one defense on Gataric, which is when four players defend in a zone with one player defending man-to-man. But the added attention on Homestead’s go-to player didn’t appear to slow him down.
“It was a physical mismatch — bigger, stronger, more athletic,” Carpenter said. “They were really pushing it and we got overwhelmed.”
Jordan Belton led the Balers with 16 points, while Tyler Rickard added 11 and Cooper Sepulveda had seven. But San Benito was just 9 of 19 from the free-throw line, 3 of 27 from 3-point range, and couldn’t keep pace with Homestead’s high-powered offense.
Mustang Matt LaPointe added 15 points for Homestead, while Andreji Ivanovic added 10 points.
Homestead will now face No. 2 Serra (19-8) in Saturday’s quarterfinal round. Tip-off is 1 p.m. at Piedmont Hills High, with the winner advancing to next Wednesday’s semifinal against either No. 6 Oak Grove (16-11) or No. 3 Salinas (23-1).
For the Balers, they finish their season with a 15-11 overall record, and earlier this season were runner-up in the Tri-County Athletic League with a 9-3 mark.
“It’s tough to finish that way, but we really had a good season,” Carpenter said.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 F
SANB 10 15 9 20 54
HOME 16 20 19 26 81
San Benito (54): J. Belton 6 0 4-8 16, C. Sepulveda 1 1 2-5 7, E. Elayda 1 1 0-0 5, T. Rickard 4 1 0-0 11, R. Di Salvo 1 0 1-2 3, J. Tonascia 3 0 0-0 6, R. Henderson 0 0 1-2 1, H. Miskin 2 0 0-0 4, M. Breen 0 0 1-2 1.
Homestead (81): Hoffman 0 0 3-4 3, Hunter 1 0 0-0 2, Frazier 2 1 0-0 7, Gataric 6 3 8-10 29, LaPointe 7 0 1-2 15, Rodrigo 3 0 2-2 8, Ivanovic 3 2 0-0 10, Shayesteh 2 1 0-0 5, Kenny 1 0 0-0 2.
