Following a season in which they were eliminated in the semifinal of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division VII baseball playoffs, Turlock Christian is returning to the championship game after capping off a two-game sweep of Rio Vista on Wednesday. 

The top-seeded Eagles (16-5)  won on the road 9-0 over the No. 5 Rams (13-13) in Game 2 of the series Wednesday, two days after pulling out a 6-2 win in the opener.

In punching their ticket to this year’s D-7 tile game, which takes place 6 p.m. Tuesday at Islanders Park in Lathrop, the Eagles make their third appearance in the past four seasons. They began their run in 2022, beating Madera by a 6-0 score. Their attempt to make it back-to-back blue banners fell short, falling to Ripon Christian in the 2023 title game.

Standing across the diamond Tuesday will be No. 2 Vacaville Christian (18-6), another team out of the Sierra Delta League. In their two-game series in the regular season, VC defeated Rio Vista, their lone common opponent, by 11-1 and 12-4 scores.

Wednesday’s game between Turlock Christian and Rio Vista was scoreless through the first two innings. Jakobe Garcia’s RBI single in the third broke the ice, and Cam Kelley came across later in the inning on a passed ball. Garcia then scored on a groundout off the bat of Elijah Vander Dussen.

The score remained 30 until the top of the seventh, where the Eagles put up a six-spot.

The rally began with a Kelley RBI single. Garcia then doubled in Kelley before scoring alongside Blake Starn on a double by Michael Miller. Winston York made it an 8-0 game on an RBI single, which also moved Miller to third base, who scored on a passed ball.

York was the starting pitcher and earned the win after tossing 5 2/3 innings of three-hit baseball. He struck out a game-high eight in the effort.

Kelley came on in relief, taking TC the distance allowing just one more hit and putting three more punchouts on the board.

A win on Tuesday would be just the second section title in the program’s history.