Serra grad Besse turns back clock at Cañada

“It’s a journey that I hope no one goes through,” Besse said. “But it’s my journey and I’m proud of it. And I’m going to keep my head high.”

Navigating toward the diamond was a choice the right-hander made fairly early in his Serra career, even before his senior season when the Padres basketball team won the Division II state championship.

“I was part of two great teams with a bunch of great guys,” Besse said. “I feel like basketball, I was just playing for fun because I had already committed myself to baseball.”

At Pacific, though, his pitching career never panned out. Besse played through two different coaching regimes in two years and went on to total just 11 career relief appearances, totaling a mere 10 1/3 innings.

“I don’t know if I was ready,” Besse said. “Mentally and physically, I don’t know if I was ready to play at that stage with guys who were four years older than me that were like seasoned veterans. It wasn’t that the lights were too bright … but mentally I think I wasn’t at my peak performance.”

The coaching change hit him the hardest. Former Pacific manager Mike Neu recruited Besse, who in his senior year at Serra went 4-1 with a 1.40 ERA and two saves. That 2016 team was also the last to win both a WCAL round-robin title — the league’s name for the regular-season crown, which the Padres shared with St. Francis — and the WCAL tournament championship.

After Besse’s freshman season at Pacific, though, Neu left to take the head coaching job at Cal. With Neu’s departure, former Stanford catcher Ryan Garko took over at Pacific. Besse would see the mound just three times as a sophomore while, all season, contemplating his future.

Then, during the offseason, there was a shakeup in the Cañada basketball program. Mike Reynoso, who garnered consistent success in just five years at the helm, stepped down as head coach to pursue the job for the new men’s basketball program at College of San Mateo, a job that ultimately went to Mike Marcial.

Reynoso’s former assistant coach at Cañada, Matt Lee, took over as head coach. One of his first big additions was former Burlingame High School sharpshooter Vinny Ferrari (the younger brother of USF senior Frankie Ferrari) who transferred to Cañada from University of San Diego. And it was Ferrari’s father who mentioned to Besse’s father Marc that Cañada was in the process of retooling its program and on the lookout for players.

“I paid it no mind at the time,” Besse said. “But I really wanted to take him up on his offer … and thought about it for a week. And then I was all-in on basketball.”

Once Besse made up his mind to switch sports, and schools, the transfer process was a swift one.

“[Ferrari] brought him over and we sat in my office and talked about opportunities for him to play basketball,” Lee said. “The good thing about him this year was it was just about reintroducing him to the sport.”

The trick for Besse was getting into basketball shape. At 6-5, he ultimately dropped 30 pounds in order to return to the court for the first time since 2016.

“Being in basketball, that’s the way the game goes,” Lee said. “You may not be jumping over the basket but you’ve got to be able to play defense and go 94 feet.”

It didn’t take long for Besse to start eating up minutes though. Cañada would wind up with nine players averaging over 20 minutes per game. Besse ranked fifth on the team averaging 23.1 minutes while playing in 29 games and starting 15.

Besse wasn’t projected to start heading into the season, but he cracked the starting five for Cañada’s opener when sophomore center Kaden Bradley was injured. With Besse starting in the post, the Colts started 2018-19 by storming to three straight wins at the Las Positas tournament.

“The only thing I think I lacked was just experience,” Besse said. “But Kaden got hurt and someone had to step up and take his minutes. And that’s when I think I started to come into my own.”

Once Bradley returned, he and Besse struck a balance in sharing time at the center position, and even were effective in serving in a twin-towers capacity with both on the court at the same time. This was the case in the California Community College Athletic Association playoffs, as Cañada advanced to the Sweet 16 round.

The Colts were eliminated by reigning state champion City College of San Francisco Saturday in an 83-67 loss. In that game, though, both Bradley and Besse were in the starting lineup.

“I’m proud of our guys and what we’ve done this season,” Besse said. “I don’t think anyone would have predicted what we would do with a new coach and a bunch of new guys.”

Besse averaged 6.1 points per game this season, while his 4.7 rebounds per game ranked third on the team. Only sophomore Sean Orr (8.4 rpg) and Bradley (6.1 rpg) were better.

While Cañada graduates seven sophomores this season — all seven of whom Lee expects to transfer to four-year programs, he said — Besse too may be out the door as he looks to pursue basketball opportunities at the next level. He said he is open to transferring to a Division II or III program with three years of basketball eligibility remaining.

“There’s a slight chance I might come back and play another year,” Besse said. “But I definitely want to move on to the next level as soon as I can.”