The San Benito High baseball team was hit with minor sanctions last week that will result in the loss of four contests—from 27 to 23—for the 2016 season.
Neither Nancy Lazenby Blaser, the Central Coast Section Commissioner, nor Tod Thatcher, the San Benito High athletic director, offered any specific details on the matter after repeated interview requests from the Free Lance.
However, San Benito High School District Superintendent John Perales was able to offer general details on the matter after reading Blaser’s e-mail to the school notifying it of the sanctions.
“What I can make out of the letter is we did not advertise appropriately and didn’t cast out a wide enough net of advertising like flyers and Facebook (for a traveling team that was put together to play in a tournament),” Perales said. “Second, a number of the kids who participated on this team were San Benito kids, and hence got more practice time together out of season on this particular weekend. And their uniforms resembled the high school uniforms.”
Perales said it was clear from the ruling that Balers coach Billy Aviles had nothing to do with the making of this traveling team, and added the situation could’ve easily been avoided had one of the administrators or coaches been kept in the loop.
“I think this is a good lesson for the community that if a parent of one of the players or a friend of the players pulls a team together, that they communicate clearly with the school to make sure we don’t violate any rules,” Perales said.
“I think this was an unfortunate chain of events that led to a two-year sanction and the loss of four games. I think we should work closely with the community and parents so this doesn’t ever happen again. We understand and accept the sanctions, and at the same time we are clearly steadfast behind our baseball coach. It’s a great program.”
The loss of four games next season means the Balers have a smaller margin for error in accumulating the necessary power points to qualify for the CCS playoffs.
