As the San Benito High softball team took the field for the top of the seventh inning, the only suspense was whether Haybalers ace Adriana Ibarra had the goods to deliver a perfect game.
The senior left-hander came close, settling for a no-hitter when she issued a walk with two outs in a surprisingly easy 8-0 win over Los Altos on Thursday in a Central Coast Section Division I playoff semifinal at San Jose’s PAL Stadium.
“It was definitely a tough one (to lose the perfect game),” said Ibarra, who will start Saturday’s 3 p.m. final against No. 3 seed Wilcox (24-5), which was a 6-3 winner over Carlmont, the team that ended the Balers’ eight-year CCS title reign a year ago. Top-seed San Benito enters the contest with a 23-5 record. “But the important thing is we won.”
Ibarra was simply magnificent, allowing just one ball out of the infield in one of her finest starts in a San Benito uniform. Utilizing a dropball, fastball and change-up, Ibarra had the Los Altos hitters baffled.
Ibarra struck out four and induced 13 groundouts, a testament to her ability to keep pitches low in the zone. Ibarra needed just 75 pitches to complete the no-hitter, and she also had a strong game batting leadoff, reaching base in all four of her plate appearances, including a run-scoring single in the second inning.
“Adriana was on today,” Balers coach Scott Smith said. “Her velocity was up, but I think the key for her is her change-up. When she’s getting that pitch over, it makes all of her other pitches work.”
San Benito scored two runs in the second and three each in the third and fourth innings to win going away. Suzy Brookshire delivered another impressive display of power, drilling a two-run home run to make it 7-0.
Brookshire also had a single and was hit by a pitch. Callee Heen had a single and triple, Maddy Gutierrez-Urban a RBI single and Brittne Rossi produced a RBI triple for the team’s first run of the game.
Even though the Balers finished with nine hits, it was their flawless defense—which has been a concern throughout the season—that proved to be the difference. A game after committing a whopping seven errors in a 14-4 win over Los Gatos, San Benito played the type of defense that defined its eight-year title run.
After the Los Gatos game, Smith knew the team’s defense would go a long way in determining if the program would capture its ninth section championship. So the team had three defense-heavy practices leading up to the semifinal.
That served two purposes: Not only did the players improve physically, but it proved to be a huge mental boost for a groundball pitcher like Ibarra.
“We talked about Adriana’s mental approach to the game of not being sure if she wants to throw ground balls because our defense wasn’t doing that well,” Smith said. “Our kids probably took 500 to 600 ground balls this week, and we committed to Adriana that we’re going to call a lot of pitches down in the zone. We had a lot of dropballs that Los Altos hit for ground balls, and our defense played better. It was probably our best defensive game of the season.”
Said Ibarra: “Having Suzy behind the plate is a huge thing for me, and having the defense I have is awesome because they leave it all out on the field.”
Smith knows the team must replicate Thursday’s performance against a Wilcox squad that is a superior offensive unit to Los Altos. The Balers will be making their 10th consecutive appearance in the CCS Division I final, and looking to erase last year’s heartbreak.
“You don’t mind losing, but you hate to get beat like we did last year,” said Smith, referring to the team’s defensive mistakes against Carlmont. “We’d like to get rid of that taste in our mouths from last year.”
