If Gilroy’s Dietrich Baumgartner and AJ Bean were experiencing
bouts of diminished confidence on Thursday night, which is what
Mustang coach Scott Martin saw during the third and fourth sets, it
certainly didn’t show when it mattered most. Not after the two
combined for eight of Gilroy’s 15 points in the fifth and deciding
match against San Benito on Thursday
— the Tri-County Athletic League opener for both teams.
HOLLISTER
If Gilroy’s Dietrich Baumgartner and AJ Bean were experiencing bouts of diminished confidence on Thursday night, which is what Mustang coach Scott Martin saw during the third and fourth sets, it certainly didn’t show when it mattered most.
Not after the two combined for eight of Gilroy’s 15 points in the fifth and deciding match against San Benito on Thursday — the Tri-County Athletic League opener for both teams.
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“They are our horses. We can’t go away from them, especially in Game 5,” Martin said he told his team during a timeout in the final game of the five-set bout.
“They stepped up,” he added.
Despite trailing 5-1 in the fifth game, with the host Balers carrying all the momentum after erasing a two-games-to-none deficit, Gilroy snapped from its apparent early-season daze.
It rifled off seven of the next 10 points behind a pair of kills from Bean and knotted the set at 8-all, when Baumgartner and his powerful right arm delivered the next four straight kills and powered the Mustangs to a give-and-take five-set (25-20, 25-19, 22-25, 23-25, 15-10) victory over San Benito.
“The only way they were gonna get out of it is if we keep setting them,” Martin said of Baumgartner and Bean, who combined to the tune of 38 kills on Thursday.
Baumgartner, who is just one of three varsity returners for the Mustangs this season, led all with a match-high 21 kills.
He bookended an impressive fifth-set performance with a strong start in the first two games as well, contributing nine kills to his match-high output and setting the tone for Gilroy, which early on looked like it was going to earn a three-set sweep, despite playing in its very first match of the season.
“That’s how we were playing (in practice),” said Martin, whose team is now 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the TCAL. “That’s what I was expecting.”
On the opposite end, San Benito head coach Erica Richardson said her team played with a lack of intensity in the early games.
“We didn’t pull out the win, but we did make progress as a team,” Richardson said. “We’re well aware of what happens now when we don’t start in game mode.”
The Balers (0-2, 0-1 TCAL), with six varsity returners but many of whom are on the defensive side, was coming off a three-set loss to The King’s Academy on Feb. 22, a match Richardson called “a really good eye-opener” for the team.
“It was really good to get the kinks out,” she said.
But as for those league-opening kinks, the Balers may have needed the first two sets of Thursday’s match to rid themselves of those as well.
“We all have a clear understanding that we need to be ready to play,” Richardson said.
Earning the first two sets 25-20 and 25-19, Gilroy controlled leads in the third set of 7-1, 9-2 and 15-9 when the Balers “woke up” behind the arm of returnee James Flook, who led San Benito with nine kills.
Behind the serving of Eric Adams, the Balers scored six straight points to knot the third set at 15-all, then grabbed the lead at 17-16 behind a kill from the left side by Flook.
The back-and-forth battle went into the 20s when Gilroy was called for a costly error. After San Benito was called for a four-hit violation, cutting its lead to 23-22, Gilroy was called for a serving penalty when it took longer than the five seconds allotted.
San Benito was awarded a point as a result, took a 24-22 lead, and later finished off the set with a kill from Kevin Thome.
Game 4 saw a rejuvenated Balers squad that stayed with Gilroy late — the two teams were tied at 18-all — when Flook delivered San Benito’s next three points to supply a 21-19 lead. Thome again closed it out with a kill at the net.
“They woke up,” Richardson said simply of her team’s turnaround performance.
The rousing comeback fell five points short, however.
Knotted at 8-all in the fifth set, Baumgartner delivered four straight kills to give Gilroy a 12-8 lead. A key down block by Robert Filice — he had seven blocks in the match — then supplied the Mustangs with a 14-10 lead when Baumgartner connected on another kill, this time the game-winner, from the back row.
“We just got a little shell-shocked, a little overconfident,” Martin said of Game 3 and Game 4, both losses that prevented the Mustangs from earning the sweep. “But credit Hollister, they came to play tonight.”
As did Gilroy setter Gavin Menges, who finished with 43 assists and 13 digs in the win. Charles Walker added eight kills and Conner Escobar has 21 digs and four aces.
As for San Benito, Robert Henderson provided nine kills, while Thome had eight kills and eight blocks. David Hawks had 27 assists and five blocks, and both Dylan Lomanto and Eric Adams each contributed 14 digs apiece.
With the amount of new bodies on her team, though, Richardson said she was still pleased with Thursday’s match, despite the final outcome.
“I think the win will come,” she said. “I’m very glad we play Gilroy again.”
TEAM 1 2 3 4 5
GILR 25 25 22 23 15
SANB 20 19 25 25 10
