High School Sports

The San Benito High softball team earned the top seed in the Central Coast Section Division I playoffs. The Haybalers (23-3) received an opening-round bye and play the winner of No. 8 Watsonville (16-11) and No. 9 Piedmont Hills (16-8) on Saturday at a time and location to be determined.

The San Benito High track and field team entered last Friday’s Monterey Bay League Championships with the goal of sweeping the team competition. Even though the Haybalers didn’t achieve their goal—the girls finished first with 140 points and the boys second with 108—they had plenty of reasons to smile afterward.

With a chance to clinch at least a share of its 12th league title in the last 13 years, the San Benito High baseball team gave away Tuesday’s showdown contest Palma—literally. The host Haybalers committed four errors en route to a 4-2 loss in eight innings.

On Tuesday, the San Benito High track and field team qualified a sizable contingent of their athletes to the Monterey Bay League Championships. The top nine finishers in each event qualify for Friday’s Championships at Gilroy High. On the girls side, some of the key highlights include junior Marisa Villegas winning the 800-meter run and 1600 in 2:20.73 and 5:16.28, respectively.

Jason White remembers the euphoria he felt after the San Benito High lacrosse team beat Soquel near the end of the 2015 season. Even though it went down in the record books as the Haybalers’ second win, players and coaches felt like it was their first (San Benito won via forfeit earlier in the season).

Entering the season, Tyler Triano had plenty of high expectations to play well—at catcher, not on the mound. But the San Benito High junior right-hander has been downright filthy this season. Through last week’s play, Triano was 4-1 with a microscopic 0.80 ERA.

Whenever opponents have faced the Anzar High baseball team for the first time this season, the looks of befuddlement begin. Yes, there is a girl on the Hawks squad, and she can play.

The San Benito High swimming team had three individual winners—Shannon Stephens, Zander Bonnet and Ryan Okubo—in last Saturday’s Monterey Bay League Championships at Hartnell College. Stephens won the 50 freestyle in 26.71 seconds, Bonnet won the 100 backstroke in a season-best time of 1:00.45 and Okubo won the 500 free in 5:26.40.

Matt Hill and Tyler Biersdorff both had their fair share of adversity earlier in the season. Hill went through stretches where he struggled offensively, and Biersdorff couldn’t even bat due to tendinitis in his left hand.

Brittnee Rossi and Chloe Cortez are the Nos. 1 and 2 hitters in the lineup for the San Benito High softball team, the table setters who get on base in front of potent hitters and Division I-signees Callee Heen and Suzy Brookshire. Rossi and Cortez display a calmness at the plate, belying the normal struggles players go through when they first take up a sport.