Fall off in competition and a young, strong team makes Balers a
force to contend with
The tide has turned.
With Live Oak heading north to compete next year in the Blossom
Valley Athletic League and only one senior graduating on the league
champion San Benito High boys swim team, it appears that the Balers
could dominate the local aquatics scene for years to come.
Fall off in competition and a young, strong team makes Balers a force to contend with
The tide has turned.
With Live Oak heading north to compete next year in the Blossom Valley Athletic League and only one senior graduating on the league champion San Benito High boys swim team, it appears that the Balers could dominate the local aquatics scene for years to come.
Proof of that came in the form of a Baler victory over perennial powerhouse Live Oak in the Tri County Athletic League swim championship two weeks ago, which automatically qualified the Baler team to last week’s Central Coast Section Championships.
It also marked only the second time in school history that San Benito has won a legue title.
“We came pretty close to winning league a year ago so it has been a goal of ours since the get-go,” said San Benito High Swim Coach Leif Nordstrom. “It’s special that we won, but Live Oak has won it every other year.”
In recent years Live Oak coach Mac Haines has admitted that the tide was starting to turn in San Benito’s favor since more and more young families have moved to Hollister in recent years.
“Hollister today is like Morgan Hill was 20 years ago,” said Haines in an earlier interview. “I’ve seen it coming for a long time.”
What has also hurt the Acorns in the past two years has been the opening of Sobrato High School, which has pulled from Live Oak’s student body population numbers.
“I always felt that Morgan Hill had a better feeder system for its youth,” said Nordstrom, whose team finished a perfect 5-0 in league. “But we’ve had more and more kids coming out in the last two years. This year was the first time that I can remember where we had to make cuts.”
A full roster is considered to be 12 swimmers. This year the Baler boys’ team had 24. The added depth helped the Baler boys squad edge Live Oak by a score of 333 to 304 in the league finals.
The Live Oak girls’ team, however, won its umpteenth league title in a row courtesy of its 331 points that was more than 100 points ahead of second-place Salinas High.
While Nordstrom was happy to see his team win league and earn an automatic berth into the prestigious CCS qualifying events last week at Stanford, he also had to go into the year-end event with his top swimmer not feeling up to snuff.
Junior Blane Curtis, who put up CCS qualifying times in every event (11), came down with the flu and struggled all day just to finish. At CCS, he competed in four events (the maximum allowed). They were: the 100 Fly, the 200 IM and two relay races. Although he didn’t feel up to competing had he scratched in any of those events he wouldn’t have been allowed to compete events at all so he stuck it out for his teammates.
“He competed just so that his teammates wouldn’t have to forfeit the relay events that he was in with them. He competed for them and that showed a lot of heart. Most people would have been lying in bed,” said Nordstrom. “I was impressed that he got through it.”
Other Baler swimmers that competed at CCS were junior David Smith, who competed in the 50 free and the 100 back as well as the 200 and 400 free relays, which Curtis was also on.
Smith’s twin brother Joel was also a part of those relay teams. He is the only senior on the team.
“He is our team captain,” said Nordstrom. “He all the boys get focused and is a good relay swimmer.”
After last Friday’s qualifying events were finished, only the top 16 finishers in each event advanced to Saturday’s CCS finals. The two Balers to compete on the last day were freshman Brandon Drogemuller and junior Jason Andrade.
Drogemuller made the finals in the 500 free, the same event that he captured in league after edging out favorite Mike Wu of Live Oak a week earlier.
Andrade finished 11th in CCS in the one-meter diving event. It was the highest finish of any male athlete this year from the TCAL.
“We never placed in CCS in diving,” said Nordstrom. “I was real pleased with that.”
Next year Nordstrom hopes to keep the momentum going.
“We want to win league and score a lot more points at CCS,” he said. “We want to leave our mark at CCS.”
Bellarmine High School won the boys CCS swimming championship.
Without Live Oak in the mix next year, Nordstrom knows that his team will be expected to repeat as league champions again.
“Live Oak is leaving and Everett Alvarez is coming in. They don’t have much of a swimming background – not a lot of experience like Live Oak. We’ll miss Live Oak though. Gilroy is always a rivalry because of its proximity, but all of the swimming and polo titles have always gone through Live Oak. Without them, it’s going to be a much different league.”
