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.
The No. 3 seed Bears overwhelmed No. 2 seed San Benito in rather routine fashion, 25-20, 25-22, 25-7, in a match that took just over an hour to complete. If the regular season was a marathon of euphoric moments, the playoff semifinal was a quick death.
“I thought we were going to win,” Balers coach Ruth Testman said. “It was kind of fast and painful.”
San Benito (30-7) couldn’t handle the Bears’ superior firepower, and it was on the defensive for most of the match. The Balers’ best chance to make things a contest came in Game 2, when they rallied from a 17-11 deficit to get to within one point, 18-17, on a Lexi Chavarria kill.
However, Menlo-Atherton, which won the competitive Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division with a 13-1 record, won the next two points and never let the Balers get to within a point the rest of the way. Game 3 was a runaway, as San Benito couldn’t get in a rhythm in any facet of the game.
Testman credited M-A’s potent attacks as one of the big reasons why her team couldn’t advance to a section final for the first time in eight years. But the first-year San Benito coach expressed tremendous pride in the team’s accomplishments, along with the fact that the players were a joy to coach.
“The girls gave everything they had, and that’s all you can ask as a coach,” Testman said. “It was tough because they (M-A) had two heavy hitters.”
More like three or four. The Bears were balanced offensively and terrific defensively, giving the Balers a taste of their own medicine. Despite the loss, San Benito had a spectacular season, highlighted by its first league title since 2007. The Balers had three seniors on the squad—Madisyn Gutierrez-Urban, Lexi Chavarria and Haley Leifheit—but they’ll return everyone else to try to make another CCS title run next season.
