High expectations shadowed the San Benito High softball team
wherever they went this season. Whether it be winning a second
straight Tri-County Athletic League title (which they did), or
falling in line with the past five years and earning a sixth
straight Central Coast Section championship (ditto), the Balers had
plenty of promises to keep this season, and a laundry list of
followers looking to knock them off course. But not everything that
transpired this season was expected, especially when it’s believed
to have never happened before
— tough to predict those outcomes.
”
I don’t know if there’s ever been a pitcher who has gone
undefeated in the year,
”
San Benito manager Scott Smith said.
”
There’s no one I know of who has done it and certainly no one
from Hollister.
”
Well, there was no one who had accomplished as much.
HOLLISTER
High expectations shadowed the San Benito High softball team wherever they went this season. Whether it be winning a second straight Tri-County Athletic League title (which they did), or falling in line with the past five years and earning a sixth straight Central Coast Section championship (ditto), the Balers had plenty of promises to keep this season, and a laundry list of followers looking to knock them off course.
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But not everything that transpired this season was expected, especially when it’s believed to have never happened before — tough to predict those outcomes.
“I don’t know if there’s ever been a pitcher who has gone undefeated in the year,” San Benito manager Scott Smith said. “There’s no one I know of who has done it and certainly no one from Hollister.”
Well, there was no one who had accomplished as much.
Paige Miguel, who recently graduated from San Benito High and was the No. 1 pitcher for the Balers this past season, and who struggled so much during the preseason of her junior campaign that Smith wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do, literally flipped the switch at one point last year and delivered one of the better performances by a hurler in school history this year.
Few, if anyone, saw this coming — Miguel included.
The Hartnell-bound pitcher went 18-0 with a 1.02 earned-run average in 116.2 innings pitched, gave up just 17 earned runs, allowed a total of 59 hits after facing 436 batters, and as a result was named the TCALs Most Valuable Pitcher.
Following suit, Miguel has been named the Free Lance/Pinnacle’s Most Outstanding Female Athlete of the Spring as well.
“It was the most pleasant surprise,” Smith said of Miguel’s performance this past season. “Without her, we wouldn’t have won CCS the last two years. That’s the joy of coaching right there.”
Miguel is always the first one to point out the importance of her defense, whether it be post-game or post-season. A ground-ball pitcher — she induced 18 ground-ball outs against Salinas on April 19 — Miguel said she owes everything she’s accomplished to Smith and the coaching staff, as well as both Leo and Marisa Ibarra, and not to mention the defense that stood behind her.
Miguel remembers earlier this season when she pulled a muscle near her rib and was forced to take a week off. When she returned, one of her first games back was against Gilroy, which proved to be one of the best teams in the CCS, and who the Balers would later see in the DI title game.
She allowed one run on six hits en route to the victory.
“It was difficult,” she said. “I didn’t have my speed because I hadn’t been doing anything. But my defense, my team, they backed me up.”
“There’s no one better that I would want behind me, especially Jessica Vest,” Miguel later added, highlighting the star shortstop and MVP of the TCAL this past season. “It would have been a totally different game.”
So, too, would have been the case had Miguel not developed into the pitcher she eventually became. Battling self-confidence issues early on in her prep career, Miguel didn’t play on her first travel softball team until the eighth grade, and later tried out for the Haybalers thinking her fate would be one of two options: Either she’d make the freshman team or she would get cut from the program completely.
Instead she made varsity.
“I didn’t believe in myself that much,” she said. “Luckily, Scott saw something in me that I don’t think anyone else really did. Thank God.”
Had she not made the team, Miguel said she would have still kept playing. But her growth as a person, as an athlete, she said, would have transformed her into someone entirely different than the person and pitcher she is today.
It would have most likely changed the outcome of the last two seasons, too, when Miguel was one of two pitchers who replaced Marisa Ibarra in the circle before eventually taking the role as the team’s No. 1 starter.
After all, few, if anyone, saw this coming.
“Surprised is an understatement,” said Smith, who can recall Miguel’s junior year, when she struggled out of the gate during the preseason. Then, in just the third game of the year, Miguel tossed a perfect game against Piedmont Hills.
And issues of self-doubt washed away.
“From then on, she was our No. 1,” Smith said. “It was like, ‘Wow.’
“We didn’t expect nothing and we got a tough-as-nails kid.”
Although she could throw four different pitches, the natural drop in Miguel’s offerings allowed her to throw the fastball on almost every pitch, and it prevented many of the batters she faced from ever reaching first base. In fact, opponents batted just .143 against Miguel, who allowed all of two extra-base hits during the season.
“That’s unheard of,” Smith of the statistic.
Miguel allowed just two triples last season, both of which came during the playoffs. Otherwise, there wasn’t a single home run or double allowed.
“She was so selfless to whatever the team needed,” Smith added. “I wanted her to throw ground balls because of the strength of our defense, and she never questioned that.”
Miguel, who said she never really kept track of her stats, never got discouraged when she was pulled for Megan Sabbatini either — the sophomore pitcher who spelled Miguel in relief and started 10 games for the Balers as well. Instead, the two hurlers would often help each other out, giving each other pointers along the way, and helping one another fight through the mundane of changeup-only practices.
“I wasn’t discouraged. It’s a team sport,” Miguel said. “I was happy for her. Whatever is best for the team is what I want.
“My goal wasn’t for my record. My goal was to put another (CCS) championship up.”
And that much was expected. The undefeated record, meanwhile, was a welcome surprise.
Joked Smith, “No one will ever have fewer losses than her.”
