After four seasons with two Central Coast Championships and a
pair of Tri-County Athletic League championships, head coach David
Kaplansky is moving to spend more time with his young family
– which will add another member this year.
HOLLISTER
After four seasons, two Central Coast Section championships, two Tri-County Athletic League championships, two appearances in the NorCal playoffs and a .776 overall winning percentage, San Benito High girls’ basketball head coach David Kaplansky is moving on, opting to spend more time with his growing family.
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The former head coach of the Balers announced his resignation last week, completing a four-year stint that saw San Benito compile an 87-25 overall record and a 39-9 record in the TCAL, including back-to-back 11-1 campaigns in 2008 and 2009.
His second child is expected to be born in the next couple of weeks.
“I resigned because I want to spend more time with my family,” Kaplansky said last week. “I’ll have two children under the age of two, and it’s tough to coach with a young family. I’m not going to get these two years back.”
Kaplansky plans to take at least two years off before pursuing a coaching job at a junior college. He doesn’t expect to coach high school again, he said.
“It’s been a dream of mine to coach at the next level,” he added. “It’s something I want to pursue.”
Kaplansky’s stint as head coach ended Feb. 26, after the team fell in the CCS Division I quarterfinal round to Gunn by a 50-26 margin.
The loss ended a successful four-year run that resulted in the team’s first section championship in 2007-08, as well as its first appearance in the CIF Northern California Basketball Championships later that same year — Kaplansky’s first year coaching the girls’ squad.
“Coaching is great,” said Kaplansky, who also had stints with both the Baler football and track and field programs, beginning in 1999.
“But I want to spend those (next) two to three years with my kids,” he added.
Hired in 2007, Kaplansky took over a team that was coming off a dismal 8-15 season the previous year — the first time since 1997 that the Balers failed to miss the CCS playoffs. But as a first-year girls’ head coach, Kaplansky led the Balers to a 24-6 overall record, and eventually its first CCS Division I title.
In his first game as head coach for San Benito, against Soledad on Nov. 24, 2007, Kaplansky employed a brand of basketball that would be characteristic of the Balers for the next four years. Implementing an intense, ultra-aggressive defensive approach that forced turnovers, created offense and prevented teams from finding a rhythm, San Benito forced 40 turnovers against Soledad en route to a 60-13 victory.
“This is what we’ll do,” Kaplansky said following the game. His style of coaching was often loud, boisterous and in-your-face, and his players responded.
In his first year, San Benito won eight of their first 10 games to start the season, and later went on a run of 11 straight victories to open TCAL play. The Balers then ran the table through the Division I postseason, upsetting top-seeded Carlmont in the title game by a 53-43 margin.
Advancing to the CIF Northern California Basketball Championships as a result, the Balers then extended their season when they defeated visiting C.K. McClatchy of Sacramento, 52-45. It was not only the program’s first win in the NorCal playoffs, but also its very first NorCal appearance in school history — from eight wins in 2007 to one of the top four teams in Northern California in 2008.
“… When I first started, I had a feeling we could be great,” said Kaplansky, whose first-year team included star player Vanessa Farias, point guard Elena Fata, defensive specialists Kelsey Russell and Vanessa Casalegno, and bigs Bri Romero, Megan Halstead, Lauren Adamek and Victoria Aguilera.
In his second season, San Benito upped its strength of schedule with contests against powerhouse programs like Skyline of Oakland, Presentation of San Jose and Miramonte of Orinda, and still managed to match its 24 wins from the previous season. It also matched its 11-1 record through TCAL play, and advanced to the CCS Division I championship for a second straight season as well, as the Baler girls downed Evergreen Valley 48-37 to claim yet another title.
Although the last two years didn’t yield the amount of success the first two years brought to the program, the Kaplansky-led Balers still proved to be one of the top teams in the CCS. In 2010 and 2011, San Benito went a combined 39-14 overall, 17-7 in TCAL play, and fell in the CCS semifinals and CCS quarterfinals, respectively.
“It’s a big commitment, and after coaching all those years, it’s time to be with my family,” Kaplansky said.
He later added, “I want to continue with the great relationships I built during my time there.”
Before he was hired in 2007 as the girls’ basketball coach, Kaplansky spent four years as the boys’ basketball coach at San Benito High, from 2001 to 2005. As a former player for the Baler boys — he graduated from San Benito High in 1994 — Kaplansky helped lead the Balers to a 76-34 overall record during his four seasons, including a 27-16 mark through TCAL play. The team won the league title in the 2003-04 season and went 24-6 during his final year.
The Baler boys also won the Fukushima Invitational at Independence in 2004 and 2005, the Seascape Classic at Aptos in 2004, and an invitational tournament at North Salinas in 2003.
Upon graduation in 1994, Kaplansky spent two years at Grossmont College in El Cajon before walking on to the basketball team at San Diego State University, where he eventually earned a scholarship his senior year.
Many of Kaplansky’s former players continued on to the next level as well. Farias is currently playing for Westmont College in Santa Barbara, while both Adamek and Aguilera recently wrapped up their seasons at San Jose City College.
Halstead, too, previously played at Southwestern Oregon Community College.
“I’m mostly proud of the development of all of the players into the next level,” Kaplansky said. “I’m proud of all the work these kids put in to play at the next level.”
He believed the success in tournaments, though, was a telling achievement for him. The success showed how he prepared the students to play.
While winning two CCS championships, the Baler girls also won the Wildcatz Invitational at Watsonville and the Winter Jam at Alisal in 2010, as well as the Dons Club Holiday Tournament at Del Mar during both the 2010 and 2009 seasons.
“It shows that I was able to rally the teams,” he said. “The kids play a little harder because they are playing for something. We had a lot of success.”
“After 12 years of coaching at San Benito,” he later added, “it’s time to move on.”
Sports Editor Andrew Matheson contributed to this story.
