With an Oct. 13 win against Salinas High School, bringing their overall record to 10 wins, 2 losses, and one tie, the San Benito High School field hockey team is comfortably sitting in third place in the league with only three more games between them and the Central Coast Section playoffs.
Their biggest obstacle will be winning two away games against Christopher and Gilroy high schools next week—the teams that handed the Balers their only losses this year.
“I think we might win,” said senior Sofia Abonce. “We have been practicing really hard and now that we know how they play, we have been thinking of ways of getting around them and beating them.”
Abonce has been playing field hockey since her freshman year. This year she has had to balance out the game with her other activities, including being a Girl Scout, and the senior class president.
For Abonce, San Benito’s loss to Christopher on Oct. 4 was the game that she said was the best they have played so far.
“All of our games have been really strong but our game against Christopher High School stuck out for me,” she said. “We knew they are really competitive as a team and we kept that on our minds. We did not do well for the first two quarters but we came together and they did not score at all in the second half. It was the best we have done playing as a team. We lost 4-1 but I am really proud of how well we worked together and how strong we were as Balers.”
Abonce said it was difficult to relearn how to function as a team after the previous year was truncated by COVID-19.
“Last year was very different,” she said. “We had to have social distance, wear a mask, and could not practice with a ball. It has been very hard to get back into everything, but as things got closer to normal, everyone started looking forward to coming out after school for practice or games. It has made us a lot stronger as a team this year and you can see the bonds that exist between us now that were not there before.
Team goalie Megan Maggiora, a Baler sophomore, also played last year and credits the team’s success in part to a greater turnout of players.
“Our numbers got hit really bad last year with COVID,” she said. “A lot of our players ended up going to other sports, like soccer or softball, because they were all being held at the same time. This year we have enough players for the varsity and junior varsity teams.”
Maggiora’s favorite game was their first one, a 1-0 win against Carmel High on Aug. 26.
“The game against Carmel was our first away game,” she said. “We really bonded together and we all played very hard. And, of course, it was great to win our very first game.”
Molly Macierz-Svihus said this is the school’s best team yet in her five years as head coach.
“Overall skill, development, leadership, teamwork, it’s all there,” she said. “We were also able to do workouts through the wintertime and conditioning and work over the summer. All that hard work has paid off.”
According to Macierz-Svihus, the result has been a better knowledge of the game and field awareness, along with improved dribbling, passing and communication. In addition, the team members have a desire to push themselves to realize their peak skills.
“They want to learn more,” she said. “As soon as we do one drill, they want to move on to something more difficult and challenging. They put a lot of heart out there and they are not afraid of adversity. Win or lose, the girls are having a good experience. They are finding friendships and camaraderie, building their leadership skills and work ethics. I look forward to seeing how they live their lives in the real world.”
Macierz-Svihus said that based on the performance this year, next year’s team is promising.
“We have so many juniors this season,” she said. “We have a lot of new players on the junior varsity team and some players who have been with us since their freshman year. We are continuing to build even at the freshman level—we even have two talented freshmen on our varsity team so the future is looking bright.”
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