San Benito will play Wednesday night in Watsonville
Tournament
MORGAN HILL
San Benito girls soccer coach Ben Alvarez has a simple theory when it comes to attacking the net.
The more shots you take, the higher chance you have of scoring.
To date, the Lady ‘Balers are averaging 25 shots on goal, Alvarez said, and the shoot-now-shoot-often approach seems to be working.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on the other team’s side and we’re taking a lot of shots on goal,” Alvarez said. “The goals will come with the more shots we take.”
The plan is paying dividends for San Benito, which has opened the season with a 4-0-1 record, having outscored their opponents by a 17-6 margin.
The one blemish to their record – if you can call it a blemish – was the 2-2 tie on Tuesday against Sobrato at the Morgan Hill Sports Complex.
The Lady ‘Balers held a two-goal lead at halftime in that game when Hannah Cobb pocketed a pair in the 10th and 20th minutes to put San Benito ahead at the break.
But with a light rain altering the game in the second half, Sobrato managed to score twice and knot the game at 2-all.
“It was kind of a tough game and I knew it was gonna be a test for us,” Alvarez said. “It started to rain a little bit, and that threw the players off their game.”
Meanwhile, San Benito is in the middle of the Watsonville Tournament and has dispatched two opponents already – Soquel 1-0 and Pacific Collegiate 4-2.
Against Soquel last Saturday, the Lady ‘Balers took 21 shots on net before Sophie Coelho found the back of one in the 70th minute on an assist from Yaira Lizarraga.
“That was a very good team, but the girls knew what they needed to do,” Alvarez said. “They were definitely a strong team and were very well organized, but we found a way to penetrate their defense and that won the game for us.”
Alvarez employed his usual 4-4-2 formation for the first half, but placed as many as six attackers in and around the 18-yard line in the final 40 minutes.
That same strategy was used against Pacific Collegiate on Monday, where San Benito put three goals on the board before the Santa Cruz school could get one.
Samantha Moreno (15th), Daniela Ocampo (35th), Sara Yamasaki (50th) and JC Clayton (80th) all scored for San Benito.
“We felt that after playing Soquel, we could easily dominate them. We took that same approach against this team and it worked out very well for us,” Alvarez said. “We spreaded their defense, brought midfielders into the gap, and that’s where most of our goals were coming.”
The Lady ‘Balers will play tonight, Wednesday, in the Watsonville Tournament at 7:30 p.m., although no opponent has been announced.
Win or lose, though, San Benito is guaranteed to play on Saturday as well.
If they win on Wednesday, San Benito will play Saturday at 1 p.m. If they lose, they will play Saturday at 5 p.m., in Watsonville.
