The end result was what no one wanted, but simply making it to
the final game was what no one expected.
Sure, Saturday night’s 28-10 defeat to Milpitas in the Central
Coast Section Division I championship is going to sting a little.
And for the seniors, which won’t play another down of high school
football, it’s going to sting a lot.
The end result was what no one wanted, but simply making it to the final game was what no one expected.
Sure, Saturday night’s 28-10 defeat to Milpitas in the Central Coast Section Division I championship is going to sting a little. And for those seniors, which won’t play another down of high school football, it’s going to sting a lot.
That all comes with the territory of winning and losing.
But take a look back to where the Balers were two years ago when they went 4-6, or last year when they went 3-7, or even at spring practice in June when they were installing a brand-new offense. I had San Benito penciled in for a playoff spot at the beginning of this season, if — and it was a big if — they could stay healthy.
Anything beyond that fearless prediction would get you into a heated argument with someone from Salinas or Gilroy — and fists would be thrown!
But penciled in for an 8-2 regular season? No.
How about the No. 1 seed in the playoffs? Nope.
What about winning 10 games in a single season, which hadn’t been done by a San Benito football team since 2001? Umm, no, are you serious?
As senior offensive lineman Courtland Thompson said on Saturday night, simply making it to the Division I championship was a small victory in itself. And if you can’t agree with that, then you’re not looking at the whole picture.
Thompson is one of 36 seniors on this year’s team, seniors that had a weight on their shoulders ever since the loss to Gilroy. None of the seniors wanted to experience what their last high school football game would feel like, especially if it turned out to be a loss, while at the same time wanting to instill some sort of legacy in their final year, some sort of stamp.
There was a point earlier this decade when the Balers knew nothing else except reaching the CCS championship. It happened six times in seven years, from 1999 to 2005. But losing in the first round to Piedmont Hills in 2006, followed by back-to-back losing seasons in 2007 and 2008 — in which the Balers missed the playoffs both years — left San Benito’s current varsity crop with very little postseason experience. Only a handful of three-year varsity players can recall the Piedmont Hills game, while no one had witnessed a CCS championship.
Win or lose, Saturday night’s return to the CCS finals certainly was a small victory, and even a step in the right direction after consecutive playoff-less seasons. It’s not exactly the legacy the seniors were hoping to leave behind, I’m sure. But it definitely put San Benito back on the postseason track, and will only lay the groundwork for next year’s team.
I spoke with senior defensive lineman Jacob Benitez following Saturday night’s loss. If you’re not familiar, Benitez leads the Balers in the inspirational-halftime-speech department, and speaking with him briefly it’s no surprise why.
Sporting what looked like an oven mitt on his left hand Saturday night — the lineman played against Milpitas with a broken hand — Benitez spoke to the team after the game, calling the Balers good gente, which is spanish for people.
“Everybody doubted us in the beginning, even our fans and a lot of our family, our friends, but I’m just proud of everybody that came back,” Benitez said. “I have this motto, it’s ‘stay solid.’ And I told them that even though we lost tonight, we aren’t broken, not totally broken. In order to be solid, you have to be broken a little bit, so you can repair everything.”
“So I just told them that I love them, and to not lose the connection to come back with a chip on their shoulder, all the juniors and sophomores, to come back and get what we deserve.”
In other words, stay solid San Benito.
