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TC baseball puts away Hilmar early
TC baseball 1
TC's Gavin Farinha pitched a no-hitter against Hilmar on Wednesday. Turlock Christian won 15-0 (CANDY PADILLA/The Journal).

Turlock Christian baseball routed Hilmar, 15-0, behind Gavin Farinha’s third-straight no-hitter. The game was called early in the fifth inning after the Eagles’ bats matched the production of Farinha’s arm.

“They performed well out there,” said Turlock Christian head coach Bill York, “He (Farinha) pitched well, he had a no hitter and you can’t really argue with that. He wasn’t on top of his game today and he battled through it, and I’m really proud of him.”

TC opened up scoring in the first inning when Jayden Espinoza drove in an RBI off of a single. The Yellowjackets were able to keep pace in the second by not giving up a run, but the Eagles opened things up in the third with five runs.

“TC played great,” said Hilmar head coach Jeff Brown. “Their pitcher did a heck of a job to keep our bats quiet. Defensively we struggled and TC took advantage of our mistakes. They have a good baseball team and you have to play well to compete with them and unfortunately, we didn’t do that.”

The inning started off with TC earning three straight walks to load the bases. Espinoza hit a sacrifice fly ball to bring in the first run of the third. Beau Bell grounded into a fielder’s choice to bring in the next run. After a strikeout, Manny Delgadillo hit a double to drive in two runs. Finally, Xavier Ruezga singled to get the final RBI of the inning.

After scoring three runs in the fourth inning, the Eagles started hitting loose and scored six runs in the fifth inning. TC had three doubles and three singles in the sixth, and the game was called after that.

Farinha surrendered zero hits on zero runs, striking out six. Jason Pimentel took the loss for Hilmar, he surrendered six runs on six hits over three innings with three strikeouts.

TC had 14 hits in the game, with Espinoza leading the Eagles with three hits in four at bats. Neither team committed any errors.

This was the last game of the preseason for the Eagles and they finished with a record of 7-2. TC opens up league play on March 30 with a home game against Venture Academy. Hilmar has a record of 7-4 with a league record of 3-1. They play a home game against Dos Palos on Friday.

“We have to stay focused going into league play,” said York. “We know we could play defense; we could hit when we need to and if we can do that, we’ll be fine.”