San Benito No. 1 tennis player Kyle Skinner spent all of Tuesday not feeling his greatest — he wasn’t sick, but he was worried.
Through his first three years on the tennis squad, Skinner always hoped for a chance at competing for a Tri-County Athletic League title. On Tuesday, as the Balers hosted Palma, that chance was now.
San Benito entered the meet with the Chieftains with a perfect 4-0 record inside the TCAL’s Valley Division — one game ahead of Palma in the standings. A San Benito victory Tuesday would give the Balers full control of their destiny, Skinner said.
“I was more nervous because a loss means a loss in TCALs and that’s how it’s always been,” Skinner said. “If you lost one match, you lost the league title. We beat Palma earlier so if we lost we would be tied, but I’d rather have them behind us and cruise through the season.”
Because of Skinner, and a dominant performance from the Balers singles players, San Benito is still perfect and two games above Palma. The Balers defeated the Chieftains 5-2 and now sit 5-0 inside league play.
On Wednesday, the Balers continued their success with a similar 5-2 win over Pacific Grove. But the bigger win was the Balers league opponent.
“We knew Palma was going to be really tough — we only beat them in a tie-breaker last time,” head coach Chris Yoder said. “We had a talk about it yesterday at practice. We reviewed what everybody needed to do. It kind of worked out the way we planned for it to — we got lucky. We executed all the little things a bit better than they did.”
And that success started with Skinner, who jumped on Palma’s No. 1 singles player A.J. Yates to win 6-4, 6-1. Skinner never fell behind, and cruised in the final set once Yates started missing his shots.
“My strokes have been on and my serves have been on,” Skinner said. “I wanted to punish it as much as possible.”
Despite not being prepared for his opponent — Skinner expects to play Mitchell Huntington, who played in the No. 2 slot — the senior was able to control Yates’ hard serves.
“I was able to run them down most of the time,” Skinner said.
Despite the easy win, Skinner didn’t give the Balers the team’s most impressive performance. No. 3 singles player Eric Johnson hardly broke a sweat in a 6-0, 6-0 win.
Johnson, who worked with Skinner during a Monday practice, took advantage of Palma’s Casey Cory’s mental errors, he said.
“I don’t know, he was making more mistakes than I was and I was taking advantage of that,” Johnson said. “I was mentally challenging him. He was going to beat himself before I beat myself. I was just consistent today, and that’s why I won.”
No. 4 singles player Andrew Panger followed Johnson and Skinner to a straight-set 6-2, 6-2 victory as well. Panger’s victory gave San Benito three of the four singles matches. San Benito’s only singles loss came from Geoff Muzik, who lost to Huntington in straight sets.
On the doubles side, San Benito’s top two pairs each won in two sets.
Sunny Singh and Jacob Panger won easily, dispatching Palma 6-2, 6-1. And Nick Trillo and Aaron Francis won 6-2, 6-3.
Overall, it was an impressive showing for the Balers as they start to look toward a Valley Division championship and the TCAL tournament.
“They have matured as players and they are playing with a lot more confidence this year,” Yoder said.
Johnson expects the Balers to finish the league season with ease, he said.
“This really strengthens our position as the top team in our league,” he said. “Our next biggest challenge will be from the upper division. That’s what we are looking forward to.”
To get there, though, the team still needs to beat its remaining opponents, Johnson said.
“We just need to focus each day on getting better and staying good and not taking advantage of the wins we have but staying focused every day,” he said. “We need to play hard everyday because if we start to slack off and we let other stuff distract us, we could give it up to teams that we shouldn’t lose to.”
Against Pacific Grove, Skinner (6-0, 6-0), Muzik (6-3, 6-1) and Johnson (6-3, 6-1) all won to lift the Balers to the 5-2 victory. Double partners Aaron Francis and Trillo also won 6-1, 6-1. Finally, No. 3 double partners Michael Ormsby and Travis Mills won 6-1, 6-0.
The Balers look to keep their perfect league record going Tuesday against Watsonville. San Benito defeated the Wildcatz 7-0 earlier this year.
