Teams enter tournament with eyes on the prize
Boys’ water polo
In a span of about four minutes on Tuesday, the San Benito boys’
water polo team saw just how quickly things can change offensively
in their Tri-County Athletic League match-up with Palma.
When Chieftain Aaron Lewis took a point-blank shot on goalie
Kyle Reuther midway through the first quarter, the senior keeper
blocked the attempt
– almost as if he knew where Lewis was going to put it – and
then launched a pool-length pass to teammate Nick Angulo, who
easily deposited a counter goal that put the Balers up 4-1.
Quick and easy.
Teams enter tournament with eyes on the prize
Boys’ water polo
In a span of about four minutes on Tuesday, the San Benito boys’ water polo team saw just how quickly things can change offensively in their Tri-County Athletic League match-up with Palma.
When Chieftain Aaron Lewis took a point-blank shot on goalie Kyle Reuther midway through the first quarter, the senior keeper blocked the attempt – almost as if he knew where Lewis was going to put it – and then launched a pool-length pass to teammate Nick Angulo, who easily deposited a counter goal that put the Balers up 4-1.
Quick and easy.
But before San Benito could dispatch Palma early on – they found the back of the net four times in the first three minutes of regulation – the Balers would go scoreless over the next five minutes of play, as they failed to convert on five consecutive offensive possessions.
“It seems like we were forcing the ball to two-meter an awful lot, and we weren’t productive out of two-meter at all,” coach Tom Agan said. “So let’s do something else, and we kept talking about that. But we kept going back to two-meter again.”
Although the Balers pulled out an 11-9 victory against Palma Tuesday, improving to 6-1 in the TCAL and further solidifying their position on second place in league, Agan feels the offense continues to force passes, continues to force shots.
“It’s too familiar. It’s too easy for them,” he said. “Instead of running our offense that I want to run, that we have more success with where it’s very dynamic and very fluid, we’re too comfortable throwing the guy in at two-meter and forcing the ball to him.
“They crash on him, it gets stolen and we get to swim.”
With only the TCAL Tournament remaining, San Benito has already locked up the No. 2 seed – certainly a perk considering they were jockeying with Stevenson, Carmel and Palma for the second-place standing in league. The Balers beat all three teams by scores of 9-6, 9-3 and 11-9, respectively.
At least on paper, we’ve got it for a while,” said Agan, regarding the team’s No. 2 seed. “This just seeds TCALs, so it really doesn’t mean anything other than that. But it’s nice to go in with a high seed, as you’re going to play an easier match on your way to the championship.”
Whichever team advances to the championship will most likely be battling Salinas, which has proved to be a step ahead this year and for the second season in a row. As the defending league champions, the Cowboys have gone undefeated through six games already this year, and will carry their team-to-beat status into the TCAL Tournament.
Agan believes San Benito’s strong defensive play to be the team’s M.O., so if San Benito has any plans of upsetting Salinas, it would likely start at the offensive end.
“Some really precise passing. Improvement in our conditioning and a lot less passing mistakes,” Agan said. “Honestly, I don’t know if we’ve got that. It’s a little bit of everything.”
Simply keeping pace with Salinas could be added to the list as well. In a match earlier this season on Sept. 16, the Cowboys beat San Benito 18-8 – perhaps the difference coming in the second quarter when Salinas outscored the Balers 7-1.
“Their passing is really on par, even under pressure,” Reuther said of Salinas. “We still have some things to work on still, but we’re gonna try for it.
“Probably working as a team is the biggest thing – meshing, not just individual players but as one unit.”
Girls’ water polo
San Benito girls’ water polo coach Hayley Vandercook says she is very confident in her team heading into next week’s TCAL Tournament.
It will, no doubt, be a difficult challenge for the Lady Balers, however, which are not only the defending league champions but also find themselves in a bit of a crapshoot atop the league standings.
At 5-3, with their latest triumph being a 9-6 victory over Santa Catalina on Tuesday in which eight different players scored, San Benito sits somewhere toward the middle of the pack in the TCAL.
Ahead of them is Salinas, which San Benito defeated 7-5; Stevenson, which San Benito has both beaten 6-4 and lost to 13-8; and Gilroy, which defeated San Benito 9-7 in the league opener on Sept. 11.
Without even delving in to the past history between the two schools, take a guess as to which team the Lady Balers want a second chance at?
“I think a lot of them would like Gilroy. That was our first league game and we had never lost to them before,” Vandercook said. “Especially for the older girls, they’re really bummed about that loss.
“They don’t want to end the season without having played [Gilroy] again. They definitely were hurt by the sting of the first loss. They would like to play them again.”
Not to be left out is Carmel, though, which has three losses like San Benito but split their two matches with the Lady Balers this season – a fact that should throw the TCAL seeding process into a further state of confusion.
San Benito most likely won’t know their seed for next week’s tournament until the regular season is fully complete.
With less than a week to prepare, however, Vandercook said her team needs to focus on the “little things” before entering TCALs.
Specifically, it comes down to individual roles, and although the Lady Balers do not necessarily need to work on defense as a whole, she said they do need more situational practices.
For instance, Vandercook said, situations on defense where an offensive player is left alone.
“There are small situations that we need to work on so they don’t make a mistake that will result in a goal,” she said. “Each girl has something to work on. There are a number of little things we need to work on, but it’s those little things that decide close games.”
And in a league where there is, arguably, no true leader or standout team, it’s the little things that could decide the TCAL champion from the runner-up, or first place from third place, or No. 1 from No. 4.
For any added edge, though, the Lady Balers may find the strength to repeat as TCAL champs from within. After going 7-1 last season, the team’s 5-3 record this year was not easy to swallow.
“This year, they had so many ups and downs. For them to go 5-3 is not something they were used to,” Vandercook said. “TCALs is winner take all. It has nothing to do with our loss to Gilroy or our loss to RLS. They know what they could have done in each of those games differently.
“Their strength is they have the desire to win because they had such a difficult season that they had had in the past … The girls are ready for any of the teams. All of them. It’ll be a good tournament.”
The TCAL Tournament is scheduled for Nov. 3-8 for both the boys and girls teams.
