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TC falls short in semi-finals
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Mikayla Yagi spikes one over and scores additional points for Turlock Christian Tuesday evening. - photo by CANDY PADILLA / The Journal

It took four hard fought sets and a game to 15 to determine the match winner in Tuesday night’s CIF Sac Joaquin Section Division V semi-final game, with Turlock Christian ultimately falling to Bradshaw Christian in the nightcap.

Calvary Baptist Church was packed with both teams' fans in support for their girls and the crowd got a good show in return.

“The girls did fabulous,” said Pam Franco, head coach for Turlock Christian. “I’m so proud of the way they played; they stepped up every single second of this game.”

Every game was within grasp for either team (25-23, 22-25, 20-25, 25-23 and 5-15).

Turlock’s gutsy play in the first game assisted in their win after trailing nearly the whole time and they displayed that once again in game four that brought the Eagles to a game 5 matchup.

“Game four was huge for us,” said Franco. “We had basically a team of seniors out there and we just told them, ‘hey, you just have to dig deep if you don’t want your season to end—you’ve got to get this game,’ and they dug deep and won.”

Nicky Sanders had a couple of game changing kills that either set the Eagles on top for the win or shifted the momentum of the game in their favor.

The last game did not reflect the four sets of action prior to that, but TC finished strong, regardless.

“Bradshaw just got into a really strong rotation that last game, they had a strong server and it just worked for them,” said Franco.

Overall, however, Franco can look back on a season and be proud of her team.

“We were up against Bradshaw who’s a two time defending champion of the D5 section title and we came up from D6,” said Franco. “We made it this far and had such a great season.”