San Benito earns second straight tournament title with a 58-31
victory over Madera on Saturday at the Alisal Winter Jam in
Salinas; the 8-0 Lady Balers will now host Presentation on Tuesday
night at Mattson Gym in Hollister.
SALINAS
The defensive game plan for the San Benito Lady Balers on Saturday was to stop Madera’s Staysha Fernandes — one of those easier-said-than-done type of tasks.
“We just had to front her and make sure she didn’t get to the basket,” said San Benito’s Cassie Pate, who, along with Nicole Rianda, had the honor of defending Fernandes during Saturday’s tournament championship at the Alisal Winter Jam in Salinas.
But while the Madera post player managed to score eight points in the first quarter — well on pace to reach her 14-points-per-game average — Fernandes was held to just a single point for the remainder of the game, as the Lady Balers delivered a strong defensive showing as well as an offensive clinic on Saturday when they upended Madera 58-31, and improved to 8-0 in the process.
“I felt that was our most complete game,” San Benito head coach David Kaplansky said.
The defensive output was only coupled with an offensive counter that yielded 19 points for Victoria Aguilera and 18 for Erin Glasspool, and placed an exclamation point on San Benito’s 3-0 record at the Winter Jam, which included victories over Buhach Colony (53-16) and North Monterey County (49-30).
The tournament win follows the previous weekend’s trophy-grab at the Wildcatz Invitational in Watsonville, where the Lady Balers went 3-0, and sets the stage for Tuesday night’s showdown against visiting private-school powerhouse Presentation.
“We’re so excited. We can’t wait,” Pate said Saturday. “I can’t tell you how excited I am. We just want to see how well we match up with them compared to last year.”
Last season didn’t go so well for the Lady Balers. San Benito visited Presentation in San Jose in just its third game of the season, and couldn’t keep pace with the big, uptempo Panthers in a 70-32 loss.
This year, Presentation is 7-1. Although it’s coming off its first loss of the season — a 46-41 defeat against Sacramento powerhouse Kennedy High on Saturday — the Panthers are currently ranked No. 1 in the Central Coast Section, according to MaxPreps.com.
Tip-off is 6 p.m.
“We’re playing well right now,” said Kaplansky, whose Lady Balers are currently ranked No. 7 in the CCS by MaxPreps. “Presentation is gonna be a big challenge for us. But I like the fact that we’re playing well right now.”
Saturday’s game against Madera offered a strong tune-up for the Lady Balers. Up against a much larger opponent, San Benito grabbed a 16-10 lead after the first quarter before opening up a 35-15 cushion at halftime — the second quarter of play was very much the difference in the game.
While Madera’s post players were shutdown by San Benito’s bigs — not to mention its guards routinely clogging the passing lanes — the Lady Balers forced 24 turnovers and used an inside-out offensive attack that sent the Coyotes into fits.
“We wanted to start off in the beginning going inside-out,” said Glasspool, who hit four 3-pointers against Madera on Saturday. “Hit the bigs — Nicole (Rianda), Vickie (Aguilera) and Cassie (Pate) — and then work our way out. But also run the ball, just keep running and sprinting.
“I think it worked well.”
San Benito intially used the post player Aguilera around the perimeter to relieve pressure. Once Glasspool drained a pair of 3-pointers within the first five minutes of regulation, though, Madera was forced to honor San Benito’s perimeter shooting, and Aguilera moved down into the post as a result.
Aguilera and Glasspool combined for 28 of San Benito’s 35 first-half points.
“I felt the difference was our perimeter shooting,” Kaplansky said. “I felt once our 3-pointers started going down, that really opened up the middle.”
Bigs Aguilera and Rianda scored 15 of San Benito’s 19 points in the second quarter when Glasspool banked in a buzzer-beater at the half to put the Lady Balers up by 20 at the break.
“And once we got into it,” Glasspool said, “we played really good team defense.”
Madera (6-2) was unable to mount any sort of comeback after San Benito’s convincing second quarter. The Coyotes shot 5 of 11 from the field in the first quarter, but just 13 of 48 for the game.
San Benito, meanwhile, was 25 of 55 from the field.
Rianda scored five points for San Benito, which had 10 different scorers in Saturday’s contest.
“I feel like that we’ve had two big weekends,” Kaplansky said, “and now we get a section powerhouse and a top-20 team in the state.”
Notes: San Benito committed 17 turnovers in the game … The Lady Balers shot 4 of 5 from the free-throw line … Madera was 2 of 3 from the free-throw line.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 F
MADR 10 5 7 9 31
SANB 16 19 12 11 58
San Benito (58): V. Aguilera 8-13 3-4 19, M. Vallejo 1-2 0-0 2, C. Pate 1-2 0-0 2, E. Glasspool 7-14 0-0 18, E. Miskin 1-1 0-0 2, C. Salinas 1-1 0-0 2, J. Echaorre 1-2 0-0 2, N. Rianda 2-3 1-1 5, M. Cortez 1-1 0-0 2, M. Fortino 2-8 0-0 4.
Three-point goals: E. Glasspool 4.
