Sports

The San Benito High girls soccer team opened the season with a 2-0 non-league loss to Leigh on Dec. 1. Despite recording just two shots on goal in the second half, the Haybalers showed flashes of potential that gave fourth-year coach Becky Bonner-Leland plenty of reason for warranted optimism.

A year ago, the San Benito High boys basketball team had a season to forget. The Haybalers finished 6-18 overall and 3-9 in the Monterey Bay League’s Gabilan Division. Only Seaside had a worse mark in the Gabilan. A rash of injuries and other issues exacerbated San Benito’s problems, making for a long season.

Despite returning just one starter from a team that finished second in the Monterey Bay League’s Gabilan Division a year ago, San Benito High girls basketball coach Mitch Burley expects good things for the upcoming season.

In just its fifth year as a program, the Tri-County Rebels Peewee football team reached the pinnacle of its sport—winning the Monterey Bay Youth Football League(MBYFL) Super Bowl. The Rebels did so by defeating the Salinas Colts 14-8 in overtime on Nov. 21 at Rabobank Stadium.

The San Benito High football team had a chance to measure itself against one of the best teams in Northern California on Friday in a Central Coast Section Open Division I playoff semifinal at San Jose City College.

A year ago, David Kaplansky took over a Gavilan College men’s basketball program that had finished 1-22 the previous season. It’s apparent the former San Benito High coach has steered the Rams in the right direction.

When things didn’t work out for Omar Vasquez at Colorado Mesa University last spring, it looked as if his running career was over. The former San Benito High cross country and track standout competed for Colorado Mesa’s track team in the 2015 season, but for various reasons the college wasn’t the right fit.

For the first time since 2007, the Hollister Vikings Pop Warner football program is sending one of its teams to the national championships in Florida. The program’s junior Peewee team (9 to 11 year olds) advanced to Pop Warner’s Super Bowl extravaganza after it beat Pacifica 14-12 in the Northwest Regional championship game at Rabobank Stadium on Nov. 14.

ATHERTON — Lesser teams might have wilted, but not San Benito.

The San Benito High girls volleyball team won 30 matches for one of the few times in school history, including their first league championship since 2007. But the Haybalers simply ran into a buzzsaw in Menlo-Atherton on Wednesday in a Central Coast Section Division I playoff semifinal at Piedmont Hills High in San Jose.