The 2012-13 sports season was a banner year for San Benito High. After winning Monterey Bay League titles in cross country, boys basketball, softball, girls swimming, track and field and boys volleyball, San Benito had at least one sport crowned a champion each season.
On top of that, San Benito earned three Central Coast Section championships, as the softball team won its eighth title in a row, the football team overcame a 5-5 season to win its first title in eight years and Vanessa Estrada closed her prestigious cross-country career with her first CCS title – winning the race by more than a minute.
And then there is the success of the girls basketball team – reaching the CCS title game – and CCS victories from both volleyball teams, the girls water polo squad – the school’s first – and girls soccer team.
Everywhere and in every sport at San B enito High, someone made an impact not only in league play but the entire section.
Because of that extreme success, four Balers were named the Male/Female Athletes of the Year for the Free Lance. Estrada, Megan Sabbatini and Ellie Burley finished in a three-way tie in the Free Lance’s voting to earn the female award, while Jacob Tonascia was named the Free Lance’s male athlete.
All four athletes won at least a league title and each earned all-league honors in every sport they played.
Tonascia, who was named the MBL’s MVP in basketball, helped the Balers hoops team to its best season in nearly a decade, while hitting over .400 on the diamond. Sabbatini won her second consecutive pitcher of the year award, leading the Balers to an eighth CCS title. Burley was a dominat and important player in three sports – volleyball, basketball and softball. And Estrada wrapped up her San Benito career as the one of the school’s most decorated athletes with nine league titles – combining both cross country and track – and a CCS championship.
For all the Balers, their success – both personal and team wise – came from four years of good coaching, dedication and hard work, Estrada said.
“It’s been a really long journey,” she said. “From coming from nothing to something. It’s made me an overall different type of person. You don’t have to be the best when you start but when you work hard you can accomplish the goals and the dreams that you want. I feel excited because all the goals I set, I accomplished. I don’t even know how to describe it.”
That biggest goal was winning a CCS title. Estrada came close her junior year, but near the end of the race she became tired and fell back and finished seventh. After the tough finish, Estrada dedicated herself over the next year for redemption. And she got it with ease.
During the CCS championship, Estrada dominated the DI race, finished a minute ahead of Homstead’s Hannah Allen. Two months after the race, Estrada announced she was on her way to Northern Arizona on a scholarship.
“It made me feel like all my hard work paid off,” she said. “All those times running on my own and listening to coach (Jess) Morales. It all paid off. It was one of the most memorable feelings that I will remember. It felt like, I don’t want to say relieved but finally I got it. I got my overall goal to be a CCS champion. Even though it looked bleak, I never gave up.”
Estrada continued that success during the track and field season, winning the league title in the 800 meters, 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters. Running in the 3,200 meters in the CCS championship, Estrada took fourth.
Those titles and results were further proof of how far she came in four years, Estrada said.
“I wanted to prove people wrong,” she said. “I can get faster. Even though people say, that for runners, girls that as you get older you get slower. I feel like that’s no. You don’t get slower it’s just an excuse. You have to be willing to sacrifice to put in what you get out.”
That sacrifice also carried over to Tonascia during the baseball season. After leading San Benito in home runs for two consecutive years, Tonascia faced a new challenge at the plate in 2013: off-speed stuff. After facing mostly fastballs while playing baseball, Tonascia rarely saw a fastball in 2013. Instead, he shortened his swing and took the ball the other way, raising his batting average to a career-high .402 with 12 doubles.
“If anything this year taught me a lot about myself,” he said, “I had to learn my new roles. It helped me on the field. I was the guy on sophomore year that nobody knew and it allowed me to do better in the field. This year, everyone knows who I am. Hitting wise all I would see was junk. It made me a smarter player.”
In basketball, Tonascia went from a starting, role player his junior year to the Balers top player. His points per game nearly tripled from six to nearly 15, leading San Benito to its first league title since 2003.
“I think, you know, the guys trusted me with (the role),” Tonascia said. “It was something that they gave me early on. The first game against Pacific Grove. I didn’t expect it but it ended up being that way. I stuck with that role and I cherished that role. It ended up being a lot of fun and ultimately it was my teammates that let me do it. They passed me the ball. All I can do is thank those guys.”
For Tonascia, he’ll always remember two moments from his senior year, he said. Watching the crowd pour onto the court after San Benito’s overtime victory over Palma in the Balers’ final home game of the year was like a dream, he said. And hitting a game-tying home run in the Balers’ first round CCS game against Menlo-Atherton was his brightest moment on the diamond.
“That’s how I get to remember my last high school basketball and baseball games and that’s cool,” he said.
Nobody could have closed her senior year in a better way than Megan Sabbatini, who threw a no-hitter in the CCS title game to give the Balers their eighth consecutive title. Despite nerves, Sabbatini was dominant in the game. For the year, the two-time MBL pitcher of the year finished the season 18-0 with a 0.90 ERA. All her success over four years – which includes four CCS titles – was never expected, she said.
“I never knew coming into high school that I was going to be the pitcher of the year or that we we’re going to be so successful,” she said. “My senior year is definitely my strongest year. I’ve earned the most awards and what not. I don’t know, every single award is important to me and I’m going to carry that through college.”
It never came easy, though, for Sabbatini, who was blessed with a hard fastball and unhittable off-speed pitches. After wearing down at the end of the season during last year’s CCS run, including getting pulled in the title game, Sabbatini wasn’t going to let that happen this spring. She pitched every postseason inning, giving up no earned runs.
“I just wanted to finish up the season strong,” she said. “(Head coach) Scott (Smith) always told us to never lose our last game. We just wanted to go out there and we deserve to win. Our hard work pays off a lot. You have to step it up at the end. You can’t just give up. You have to finish out strong.”
In three different sports, Burley did just that for San Benito. The senior earned all-league first team awards in basketball and volleyball and earned a second team award in softball. In each sport, she played an important role. In basketball, Burley led the team with nearly eight points per game and was a key defensive player for a team that relied on that end of the floor. In volleyball, Burley led the team in kills with 376, helping the team advance to the second round of the playoffs. In softball, Burley hit .389 with a team-leading seven home runs and 27 RBIs.
“It was probably one of my best years in sports,” she said. “In basketball, we got to go to the CCS championship game. Even though we didn’t win it was a great experience and we got to travel 2.5 hours away to go play in a state game, which was probably the highlight of my whole high school career. Winning four CCS championships in softball is pretty great too. Volleyball, we didn’t have the same success but we got pretty far into the season.”
And her continued success came for her leadership, she said. After being helped by older athletes when she was a freshman, Burley wanted to be the same role model.
“When I was a freshman, I was playing with a lot of seniors,” Burley said. “They were really good role models so I wanted to do the same for the younger girls. I wanted to be a role model for the younger girls like the older girls were for me.”
That meant, showing how important dedication and hard work were, she said.
“I think just hard work and willing to play for my team (brings success),” she said. “It’s a team sport. You want to do good for your teammates. We are just working hard the whole time.”
After losing two players to serious injuries early in the year, hard work paid off the most on the basketball team, Burley said.
“We were playing with eight or nine players,” she said. “It was really hard at that point. In league we just coasted through to just get through it as much as we could. Once we got to CCS everyone was just so pumped up. We were the underdog so it’s nice to do as well as we did.”
After so much success in 2012-13, no San Benito team will be considered an underdog next school year.
