Sports

As the Central Coast Section playoffs start on Friday, the question for the San Benito High football team is this: Can the Balers defend their Division I championship and finish off another season in magical fashion?

Before the season started, Anzar High senior Diego Avila believed he could become the second runner in as many years from the San Juan Bautista school to win an individual Central Coast Section title.

It may have been the first time since 1988 that the Palma High football team suffered as many as three losses in the same season, but you wouldn’t know it by the way the Chieftains have played the last two months.

Even though the Anzar High football team lost its season finale last Saturday to Alma Heights Christian-Pacifica, 48-24, it couldn’t put a damper on the team’s overall body of work for the 2013 season.

The San Benito High football team had just put the finishing touches on a 35-0 win over Alisal-Salinas when its upcoming opponent, Palma-Salinas, was mentioned frequently in the postgame huddle.

Based on the standings, Friday night’s San Benito-Alisal football game looked like a mismatch.

When Diego Avila was a freshman at Anzar High, he never ran three miles in under 24 minutes.

David Stanton and his teammates got the play call.

SALINAS — One by one, teams from the San Benito High cross-country program hoisted up their trophies.

Insanity on one side, stunned silence on the other.