The San Benito girls volleyball team lost their semifinal match in four games (28-26, 14-25, 22-25, 13-25) to top-seeded Salinas Thursday in the Central Coast Section Girls Volleyball Championships at Watsonville High.
It was the third time the two rivals squared off this season, and the No. 1 Cowboys (23-7) managed to take all three.
San Benito finishes its season at 14-22 overall.
After opening Game 1 with a 28-26 victory, the Lady 'Balers dropped the next three games.
"We were hitting well in the first game," San Benito coach Dean Askanas said. "We made some nice hits with Shayna Nakata and Jessica Mead. They were hitting really well and they were finding the spots."
Mead and Nakata contributed 10 and seven kills, respectively. Emily Tonascia led all with 10 kills, and Courtney Scarlett provided eight.
There wasn't any momentum carried over from Game 1, however, and Salinas jumped out to an early 5-0 lead to start.
"But in games two and four, we got off to too slow of a start," Askanas said. "We've talked about it before. We have to play steady, and you can't give a team like that any big leads.
"When you're playing a team like that, you can't put yourself in a hole."
Senior setter Justine Hunter played her last game as a Lady 'Baler, and delivered a strong all-around performance with 33 assists, 18 digs, seven service points and five kills.
Defensive specialists Sara Yamasaki (26 digs), Shayna Nakata (27) and Sam Klauer (18) led the team in digs.
It was the fifth year in a row San Benito qualified for the CCS playoffs. A victory over Salinas not only would have pushed them into the CCS championship match, but it would have supplied them with an automatic bid to Nor-Cals.
Salinas will play in the finals on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Independence High School in San Jose.
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