Baptista leads Hilmar back to volleyball semis

The Hilmar High volleyball team didn’t need to be at its best Thursday night against Calaveras.

The second-seeded Yellowjackets were good enough to coast to a 25-20, 25-21, 25-17 win in the second round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV playoffs.

Hilmar (35-6) must pick up its level of play next week when the Yellowjackets host No. 3 Bear River (38-3) in the semifinals.

“We know we’re going to face a tough team, whether it is Escalon or Bear River,” said Yellowjackets setter Hannah Pearce, who finished with 35 assists. “Today we were not on at all. We had a lot of ups and downs.”

Hilmar is trying to return to the section title game for the third consecutive season. The Yellowjackets looked like a veteran pitcher trying to work his way through the lineup without his best stuff on Thursday night.

“We had some issues,” said Hilmar coach Patti Harris. “Our service receive struggled. There were moments, and then there were not so good moments. We missed more serves tonight than in any other game this season. It was just a little messy. It’s girls volleyball.

“Sometimes you lose that mental focus, and then all of a sudden it comes back. I wish I knew what it was. All coaches say that. If we knew the formula, we’d all want that.”

When you’re struggling a bit, it helps to have a star like Emily Baptista to turn to, and one day after signing to play at Pacific, the 6-foot-2 outside hitter finished with 19 kills.

Baptista hammered home nine kills in the first game. She scored the first four points for Hilmar on four consecutive kills.

The Yellowjackets got some key swings late in the game by middleblocker Mariah Ahid and left-handed outside hitter Riley Souza.

“We definitely didn’t have that sense of urgency,” Baptista said. “I think we were a little too comfortable because we felt they couldn’t pull away from us.”

Hilmar pulled away late in the second game, scoring seven of the final eight points as Baptista picked up two kills, sophomore Erin Benning put away a kill and Ahid picked up an ace to help the Yellowjackets go up 2-0.

The Yellowjackets again finished strongly in the third game with a 14-6 run to finish the sweep. Danielle Couchman served up five consecutive points midway through the game, including two aces.

Hilmar is just one win from a return trip to the section title game and a possible rematch against Sonora, which defeated the Yellowjackets in the last two section championship games.

“After losing two years in a row to Sonora, we want to get back there really bad this year,” Pearce said. “We’re working so hard to bring it home.”

Vista del Lago 3, El Capitan 0 in Folsom – The Gauchos’ ended with a 25-12, 25-17, 25-17 loss to the No. 3 seed in the Division III playoffs. Grace Lemmo led Eagles with eight kills. El Capitan finished the season at 18-8.

Le Grand 3, Golden Sierra 2 in Garden Valley – The No. 13 seed Bulldogs survived their second five-game thriller on the road with a 22-25, 25-23, 19-25, 25-18, 15-10 win over No. 12 Golden Sierra.

Katie Farnsworth (11 kills, 38 digs) and Arisbeth Ceja (10 kills, six blocks) played well for the Bulldogs (12-8), who will face top seed Vacaville Christian in the Division V semifinals on Tuesday.

“The first few games, we didn’t have the momentum on our side,” Le Grand coach Gia Priddell said. “We were beating ourselves. We weren’t in sync, kind of looking at somebody else to get the ball. Once we won the second game, we started believing in each other and took off from there.”

Dos Palos 3, Kingsburg 2 in Kingsburg – Makenna Pierce delivered a monster performance with 33 kills as the fifth-seeded Broncos upset the No. 4 Vikings 25-21, 12-25, 25-12, 21-25, 15-10. Grace Schofield finished with 50 assists and Teya Vincent added 40 digs and three aces.

Dos Palos (21-8) will face top seed Sierra on Tuesday in the Central Section Division IV semifinals in Tollhouse.

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 10:49 PM with the headline "Baptista leads Hilmar back to volleyball semis."