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Eagles fly into 8-1 start
TC girls pic1
Emilie Bakker brings the ball down the court and scores for the Eagles during their game Friday against Denair. - photo by CANDY PADILLA / The Journal

The Turlock Christian (8-1) High varsity girls basketball team is on fire.

Since losing their opening game to Calaveras, the Eagles have not lost a game over their last eight contests.

They continued their streak with a 57-14 drubbing over Woodland Christian on Tuesday night behind a team effort.

“All together it was a great game and I am proud of the way our team has been playing so far. The team played relentless defense,” said TC head coach Edwin Santiago.

As a team, TC forced 33 steals for the game, hammering down WC’s ability to do anything and congesting the court.

“We dictated the tempo and rhythm of the game from the start,” said Santiago, who was coming off a 48-40 win over Stockton Christian the day before. “Woodland graduated a lot of their senior heavy team last year and they have always been good in the past but they are rebuilding from the ground up this year.”

TC, which is 15 players deep, only had the luxury of playing with 11 players in the past two games but that was all that was needed.

All 11 players were in at one point or another during the game backed by Cassie Balswick’s double-double where she contributed with 13 points and 11 steals.

Brooke Rodrigues contributed with 10 points and 8 rebounds. Cameron Swanson led all rebounders with 12.

“We ran the floor well,” said Santiago.

The only close quarter was the opening then the Eagles started to pick up and shots began to fall.

TC was running hard for the entire game and caused WC to just gas out, eventually just unable to run with the Eagles who are senior heavy this year.

“What’s led to the hot start is the commitment from our captains to set the example for how hard they work in practice because just something different about this team,” Santiago said. “We don’t speak of winning we speak of playing our best, we don’t mention winning we just want to play the best and it starts at practice.”

TC’s next game will be against Chico High in the West Coast Jamboree at 2 p.m. on Monday.