Hollister
– It’s been a rough week as far as the weather goes for area
baseball and softball teams. But things are quickly drying out,
play is set to resume and the games lost due to the rain are either
already rescheduled or are in the process of getting
rescheduled.
Hollister – It’s been a rough week as far as the weather goes for area baseball and softball teams. But things are quickly drying out, play is set to resume and the games lost due to the rain are either already rescheduled or are in the process of getting rescheduled.
The break in early-season action was especially bitter for the softball teams of archrivals Gilroy and Hollister.
This past weekend at the Circle of Champions Tourney in Sunnyvale, the two teams were looking forward to an opportunity to square off even before Tri-County Athletic League play was set to begin. Instead, the Mustangs and Haybalers not only missed that preseason matchup, but had their league opener against each other in Hollister rained out to boot.
This leaves San Benito (4-1-1) with only six games in the books heading into league play, as opposed to the other TCAL teams, which have played anywhere between eight and 11 games already. Gilroy has played 10 so far, and has a 7-3 record going into today’s belated league opener against Notre Dame.
“We feel like we’re a little behind,” said Hollister head coach Scott Smith. “This season, we scheduled tournaments for later in the year, hoping to peak later and right now, we’re a little bit behind. The two games we got in last Friday (at the Circle of Champions) were a big step for us, getting the kids to relax at the plate, it would have been really nice to just keep right on going and have as many as four more games by this point.”
Gilroy head coach Julie Berggren was a little disappointed that the league opener with arch-rival Hollister was washed out. But she’s also glad that her team is going to get a chance to rest up.
“Getting a bit of a break at this point in the season is nice,” Berggren said. “But we were able to practice on Monday and (on Wednesday). The field is in great shape and we should be ready to go for our next game.”
The good news is that the league season consists of 10 games this year, as opposed to 15 games as in years past. This leaves a lot of open dates on the calendar that can be used for re-scheduling. The first Gilroy-Hollister game looks like it will be made up next Tuesday.
Things aren’t quite as hectic on the baseball side of things, even though more games have been lost due to recent rain than for the softball teams.
The Mustangs (3-0 in TCAL, 6-4 overall) have missed four in a row due to the weather but have re-scheduled all of them.
“We were doing pretty well,” said Mustangs head coach Clint Wheeler. “So we hope it doesn’t affect our momentum, but you never know. The guys seem to be in good spirits, though, everyone is looking forward to getting back to playing.”
Michael Luna’s Haybalers were on a two-game winning streak before the rains came. Hollister (2-2 in TCAL) waylaid the North Salinas Vikings last week to gain some ground back after dropping a pair to Gilroy the week before.
But now the ‘Balers must wait April 6 to resume TCAL play, in a game against Salinas.
