Lady ‘Balers water polo team beats Santa Catalina 9-6
Tuesday
MONTEREY
The San Benito girls water polo team distributed the offensive possessions rather evenly on Tuesday, as eight different Lady ‘Balers pocketed goals en route to a 9-6 victory over Santa Catalina in Monterey.
Only Ali Blake scored twice to lead San Benito, which improved to 5-3 in the Tri-County Athletic League. Keeper Katie Thorpe had nine saves in the cage.
It was San Benito’s final match of the regular season, and they will now await their seeding for next week’s TCAL Tournament, scheduled for Nov. 3-8.
“We brought girls up from the [junior varsity] because they didn’t have a JV team, so everybody played,” coach Hayley Vandercook said. “It was kind of a sloppy game, but we won pretty easily.”
Santa Catalina, which is having a down season after graduating 12 girls from last year’s undefeated team, could see San Benito again in the year-end tournament.
But it all depends on the seedings, which remain rather cloudy at the moment, especially in the top half of the TCAL.
San Benito sits tied with Carmel with three league losses, although the two teams split their matches this season (Carmel won the league match, 5-3).
Ahead of the Lady ‘Balers is Salinas, which San Benito defeated 7-5; Stevenson, which San Benito split with; and Gilroy, which defeated San Benito 9-7 but lost to Salinas on Wednesday, 11-7.
“They know what they could have done in each of those games differently,” Vandercook said. “The girls are ready for any of the teams. All of them. It’ll be a good tournament.”
San Benito would, however, like to see Gilroy again after the Mustangs upended the Lady ‘Balers in the season opener.
“They don’t want to end the season without having played them again,” Vandercook said.
