High School Sports

A new era has begun at San Benito High with the ascension of coach Bryan Smith, who took over in the off-season after Chris Cameron stepped down after 22 years. Even though Smith will bring his own coaching style to the Haybalers, don’t expect them to turn away from their roots.

San Benito High won’t field a girls water polo team this year. A shortage of players and a look toward the future ultimately were the reasons why the school decided to cancel the 2016 season.

Entering its second year as a program, the San Benito High field hockey team promises to make opponents pay if any of them takes it lightly.

San Benito High wrestling coach Steven Salcedo never thought he would see this day. Same goes for junior varsity football coach Chris Cameron. The list goes on and on, with scores of people within the Haybalers athletics program dying to see the school replace the archaic weight room and wrestling facility with a modernized version.

On July 12, Drew Williams became just the second player in San Benito High’s rich baseball history to earn an invite to play in the prestigious Area Code Games in Long Beach. The Area Code Games are an invite-only showcase event featuring approximately 200 of the top high school players in the nation.

After establishing himself as one of the best pitchers in the Central Coast Section this past season, Diego Fisher was rewarded with an offer from UC Davis that he couldn’t turn down. Fisher, an incoming San Benito High senior, received an offer from the Aggies after taking an unofficial visit to the school on July 15.

The San Benito High football team participated in the second annual USA Football/Max Preps Media Day presented by the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium on July 13. In all, 33 teams from Northern California and as far away as central Oregon took the stage in a press conference setting to answer questions from a dozen media members.

When the San Benito High boys cross country team made the CIF State Championships two years ago, coaches Ryan Shorey and Leanna Morgan had a feeling the girls team wouldn’t be that far behind. Their intuition proved to be spot on.

The days of high school athletes simply relaxing in the summer are long gone. Take incoming San Benito High sophomore Kami Brewer-Pozzi, for example. She recently attended an intensive five-day junior golf camp at Stanford University. The typical day for Pozzi included three to four hours of hitting balls, walking the course and finishing with non-golf games and activities that lasted until 8 or 9 p.m.

Although high school football games are contested in the fall, the real work goes on in the winter and summer months. That’s when players get bigger, stronger and faster through months of conditioning, strength-training, drills and camps. San Benito High has prided itself on its work ethic over the years, and new coach Bryan Smith has plans to make sure the school’s tradition of outworking their opponents continue.