Volleyball Advances to Finals; Hosts Sections on Saturday
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The St. Francis volleyball team reached the Sac-Joaquin Section finals with a 3-0 win over Tracy Tuesday at St. Francis. The Troubadours won 25-17, 25-21, 25-20 and will host No. 3 seed Turlock on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. It will be the final of four section finals hosted at the school on Saturday.
“I feel like we had a good mentality going into the match,” said Edwards. “We are the No. 1 seed so they were wanting to beat us. Our passes were really good and we were blocking and getting passes off the ball. We slowed down Tracy’s hits and I feel that was our best part of the game.”
Edwards led the team with 25 kills while hitting 32 percent with 10 digs. Junior Kathryn Kramer added 13 kills for the winning Troubies.
“It feels great,” said Alexa Edwards. “We put in so much hard work this season. We really earned it.”
St. Francis is playing the section finals for the first time since 2013 and will be seeking their first title since 2012when they advanced to the state championship match. The Troubadours have won 12 Sac-Joaquin Section titles in school history.
St. Francis opened with a 25-17 win in the first set that gave the early advantage to the home team. But Tracy rallied to a 6-1 lead in the second before Wright got her team to respond and get back in the set.
“We came out really strong in the first set and rattled Tracy,”
said Head Coach Alynn Wright. “Then they settled down and started
to get their momentum back. Second set was a close one and then
we started off really slow because it was the game they had to
win. I was really proud of them being down 6-1 and tying it 7-6.
Everyone contributed.”
The Troubies rallied to take the second set 25-21 and closed out the third 25-20.
“We did really well and worked on limiting our unforced errors,” said Schildmeyer, who led the attack with 44 assists. “We all really worked together and focused on staying together and executing as a team. I am so pumped.”
The other scheduled matches at St. Francis include Division 2 - Ponderosa vs. Nevada Union at Noon, Division 5 – Colfax vs. Capital Christian at 2:30 p.m., Division 6 Woodland Christian vs. Big Valley Christian at 5 p.m.
“They have earned it,” said Wright, who will coach in her 18th section final. “They have been training really hard. We talked a lot about never giving up on a ball and being the one who made a difference. We had a number of kids do that tonight, including Carly diving into the stands and Aiyu chasing a ball down. It was a great team win tonight.”
Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for students. Parking is $5.