Not even a broken trophy could dampen the spirits of the San Benito girls basketball team Friday night.
The Lady 'Balers, one year removed from an 8-15 season, a year in which they did not even qualify for the Central Coast Section Division I playoffs, completed their CCS journey with a 54-43 upset of top-seeded Carlmont in the D1 final at the San Jose State University Event Center.
The win put an exclamation point on an otherwise stellar season for San Benito. The Lady 'Balers are 23-5 overall after capturing the Tri-County Athletic League title with an 11-1 mark.
They are the most accomplished basketball team in San Benito history, which is fun to say in any instance, and they've lost one basketball game since Dec. 29. They are winners of 14 of their last 15 games.
If you haven't seen them play, you'll have yet another chance tonight, when they host C.K. McClatchy High School of Sacramento at Mattson Gym in the second round of the NorCal Championships.
If you haven't seen them play, consider yourself warned.
It's a 7 p.m. tip-off in Hollister, and I'm sure somewhere, someone will display the first-place CCS trophy for all to see.
"This just shows you can take people and if you have a philosophy and the kids believe, you can do anything," coach David Kaplansky said. "Look at what things can happen when everyone works together."
Not having any CCS final experience, San Benito entered the contest against Carlmont, the defending champs. With the cards stacked against them before the game even started, the Lady 'Balers trailed for less than three minutes of Friday's contest and held a lead of as many as 12 points before the final buzzer sounded.
It is amazing what happens when everyone works together.
Though working together can sometimes breed, well, the opposite effect.
Just minutes after the horn sounded, giving SBHS their first-ever basketball title, their first-ever CCS basketball trophy broke.
"Everyone huddled up and then we split," said post player Lauren Ademek, "and somehow it just broke in the process."
It was the type of story that spread like a rumor through the droves of parents and fans that stood in the player's tunnel, all awaiting for the Lady 'Balers to emerge with their so-called crippled hardware.
It was, of course, the little basketball player figurine that broke off, and it was, appropriately enough, repaired with heavy amounts of medical tape.
But the broken trophy seemed to be displayed more proudly after the game. Slightly awkward and eye-catching, it was a trophy with personality, with a story.
San Benito's storybook season - a story no one thought, at the beginning of the year, would end with a CCS championship - will enter a new chapter this week in the NorCal Championships.
"It's not over," Ademek said. "We still have NorCals and, hopefully, we get to go to state."
Andrew Matheson Andrew Matheson is a sports writer for South Valley Newspapers. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 334 or at amatheson@svnewspapers.com.
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San Benito Score: Boys and girls soccer and Mid-Cals
