A year after sending 14 wrestlers to the Central Coast Section championships, only two of those wrestlers remain on the San Benito squad.
Because of the dramatic overturn – only three wrestlers are returning from last year’s squad – the team is in transition with a plethora of young freshmen.
For now, the team expects to see some highs and lows with each wrestler, but the potential to be great is there.
“Right now we are going to see a lot of that moving forward,” head coach Brian DeCarli said of the team’s success. “We want to show that they can compete with anyone, and once that happens, we will start to see some more success.”
To build that eventual success, the Balers will rely on two members of last year’s sixth-place CCS squad – Robb Rodriguez and Dominic Cortes. The two wrestlers are the only members that have competed at the section level.
With the young team, the two wrestlers’ responsibility will be to be there for their teammates and help develop their skills. Doing that also includes beating them on the mat.
“Keep working hard and push them like we were pushed when we were freshmen,” Cortes said. “I just want to keep working to live up to our potential that everyone expects from the Hollister Balers.”
So far this year, the Balers have seen both sides of the winning and losing spectrum.
“We have had some kids wrestle some high-caliber kids from different teams,” DeCarli said. “In those matches, we didn’t wrestle the way we should have. I think some of the younger kids were a little intimidated. We got to see when you wrestle hard and you win. And when you let some else dictate the match, you don’t.”
So far, Rodriguez and Cortes have been bright spots for DeCarli.
“With a younger team, you need some older guys that you can point to and say that this is how we need to wrestle,” DeCarli said. “They’ve responded at times really well, but for a lot of them you can speak it and preach it, but it all depends on what they see after they practice well.”
Right now, what they see is Rodriguez and Cortes’ success.
During the last weekend’s Fehlman/Baxter Varsity Duals, the Balers struggled to a 1-3 record, but in those matches Rodriguez went 3-1. His only loss was to a Clovis wrestler – one of the best in the state.
Dominic Cortes also did well for the Balers, gathering much-needed points.
As a team, though, the young players struggled to find consistency against some of the area’s and state’s best wrestlers. But those struggles are okay at this point in the season.
To help the young players develop, DeCarli has preached that wins in December aren’t as important as those in February.
“Everything is practice until the end of the year,” DeCarli said. “We don’t want to win in December – we want to win in February and March. It’s even more important now, because we are such a young team. We are preparing them for down the road.”
The only way to prepare them for later in the season is to keep optimism high, DeCarli said.
“That’s tough when you have a young team,” he said. “They need to think positive until the end of the year.”
For now, the team has kept its spirits high despite early season struggles.
“We have a positive attitude in the kids,” DeCarli said. “They are a very coachable group. Experience wise, they aren’t as strong as they’ve been in the past, but that’s what makes it enjoyable.”
DeCarli continued, “The kids are listening and understanding that they have a long way to go.”
They have a ways to go to reach the team’s full potential.
“A lot of people are getting really better as the season goes along,” Rodriguez said. “We need to work a little more, though. We are a young team.”
For now, the team needs to play to its full potential to be competitive, DeCarli said.
“Right now we have to wrestle 100 percent of our potential every time,” he said. “Anything less, we aren’t going to be competitive. We aren’t that team that will be competitive with anything less.”
