The Turlock High’s girl’s tennis team topped off their perfect regular season at 12-0 after knocking off third place cross-town rivals—Pitman High on Thursday.
The Pride, who came in third place in the Central California Conference standings, were hosting the top ranked Bulldogs as they won an exciting contest, 6-3.
“I think one of the reasons why we are so successful is we work hard,” Turlock head coach Linda Bejaran said. “We work on quick feet and I think you see it in the matches as the girls are playing better and following through. They always give one hundred percent, even when they are not feeling well, they have that winning spirit and I think you need that.”
Coming in, the Pride knew it would be a struggle against their cross-town rivals, considering their depth and strength with their singles, but that did not matter to them as they were able to win one match in the singles as the number five singles Sahemi Castorena took down Courtnie Chan (3-6, 6-1 and 6-1).
“The girls had great energy, positive attitude about believing that they could go out and hit the ball the best they can and make them [Turlock] earn it and maybe if they weren’t having their best day we were going to take it from them,” Pitman head coach Doug Reimers said about battling a team of Turlock’s caliber. “We were playing Turlock tough but all the credit goes to them and their six incredible singles players from top to bottom, they never gave up despite our girls effort they battled it out till the end.”
Turlock dominated the singles as five of the six matches were won with ease in straight sets.
“When the girls first got here they were a little nervous because they wanted to close out the year 12-0,” Bejaran said. “The friendly rivalry with pitman is awesome because we have a lot of respect for them and coach Doug, they improved immensely from last year so I was looking forward to coming out here and its nice to end our last match with a Turlock team. It’s a friendly competitive rivalry game and we always have fun.”
Pitman finished the year atop third place in the CCC with a 7-5 record despite being able to win only a single match last season, that’s seven times as many wins as last year.
“We finished with a third place position due to the loss to Merced, had we won, we would have owned the tiebreaker with them, but I will attribute the success this year to my seniors because I asked them to step up and help lead the team and they did,” Reimers said. “Also a hundred percent credit goes to my assistant coach Betha Costa who helped get the girls fired up and she really helped.”
Turlock High will host the CCC singles and doubles tournament next week on Tuesday and Thursday with a time yet to be announced.
