Hilmar headed back to the finals

Emily Baptista set quite a tone early.

The Hilmar junior recorded nine kills and four aces in the first game and the Yellowjackets never let up as they swept Ripon 25-18, 25-15, 25-21 in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV semifinals on Tuesday night in Strom Gym to earn a second straight trip to UC Davis for a section championship match.

Hilmar (38-8) will square off with Sonora (32-5) at 8 p.m. on Friday. It’s a rematch of last year’s title game won by the Wildcats 3-2. Sonora defeated Escalon 25-17, 25-3, 25-21 in the other semifinal on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be difficult,” said Hilmar coach Patti Harris. “Sonora is a solid team and they really didn’t lose anybody from last year.”

The Yellowjackets have made it back to Davis with just three returning players who saw significant time last year in Baptista, setter Haylee Pearce and middleblocker Whitney Williams.

With a player like Baptista anything is possible.

The Hilmar star finished with 18 kills, 17 digs and seven aces.

“When she’s in the back row you have to capitalize and we didn’t do that,” said Ripon coach Adrienne Beltrami. “She’s an amazing player and I’m excited to see where she’s going to go.”

Baptista served up four consecutive aces to help the Yellowjackets build a 16-11 lead in the first game.

“I really did focus in practice on my serves because I have been inconsistent,” Baptista said. “I’ve worked on keeping the same simple movements to become more consistent.”

In the third match this season between the two Trans-Valley League opponents, Ripon (20-10) never really made Hilmar sweat.

Hilmar ran off nine consecutive points in the second game to open up a 15-5 lead.

Ripon did manage to work itself out front in the third game 14-8, but the Yellowjackets again took advantage of the Indians miscues and put together a 9-0 run to take a 20-15 lead.

“I did expect us to do better,” Beltrami said. “I expected a lot more than going out in three. We’ve seen Hilmar, of course in the TVL and they’re a great program. We had a lot of unforced errors. We haven’t played that way the last few weeks. We haven’t been missing our serves. We haven’t been struggling in our serve receive. We’ve been playing a cleaner game.”

Samantha McCreath led the Indians with eight kills and two blocks. Libero Emily O’Brien added 15 digs and four aces.

Hilmar can now turn its attention to Sonora. The Yellowjackets jumped out to a 2-0 lead against Sonora last year before losing in five.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” Baptista said. “It’s a good experience and Sonora is really a good team. We’re just going to go play to the best of out abilities.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2014 at 5:22 AM with the headline "Hilmar headed back to the finals."