Tracy High’s volleyball team won its third straight San Joaquin Athletic Association match Monday, Oct. 15, and hopes to keep up the momentum through the rest of the league season.

The Bulldogs (10-3, 4-2 SJAA) beat the Franklin Yellow Jackets 3-0 at home to open the second round of SJAA play.

The win keeps the Bulldogs on a pace to stay among the top three from the SJAA, which would qualify Tracy for Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs.

Tracy has a chance to move up in the league standings with a match against second-place Lodi on Thursday, Oct. 17, in Lodi, and again Monday, Oct. 22, against league leader Lincoln.

Freshman middle blocker Grace Murphy said her team just needs to keep up the effort it showed in the first half of the league season to move forward.

“I know if we push hard enough we can do it,” Murphy said. “This game shows that we work really hard. In practice, we work on things like covering and communicating, which is really important to us.

“Nothing can bring us down as a team. We’re a really strong unit.”

Tracy made quick work of the Franklin team (3-10, 1-5 SJAA), with set scores of 25-14, 25-9, 25-17. Murphy and sophomore setter Mika Fithian led from the service line in the first set to give Tracy an early lead, and Fithian scored a couple of aces on another string of serves at the end.

Franklin was plagued by hitting errors in the second set, but the visitors kept the match close through most of the third set until Murphy and Fithian hit some solid shots to put Tracy in the lead at the end.

Fithian scored four aces and had 19 assists, and Murphy had three aces. Samantha Gonzalez had four kills, Julia Jurado had three kills and four digs, Angela Mariani had seven digs and Casey Eddy scored two aces.

Tracy’s sophomores (13-0, 6-0 SJAA) beat Franklin 2-0 (25-12, 25-15). Tracy’s freshmen also beat Franklin 2-0 (25-10, 25-21), with Kaylah Jenkins leading the local team in service points.

Kimball 3, East Union 0

The Jaguars also kept up their push to make the SJS Division II playoffs with their fifth win in a row, beating East Union (7-10, 4-7 Valley Oak League) on Monday at Kimball High.

Kimball (9-4, 7-2 VOL) won it with scores of 25-10, 25-12, 25-8. Junior Sam Sanders led the Kimball team with eight kills, 12 digs and an ace, and sophomore Sarah Nunes scored seven kills and had two digs. Sophomore Maddy McLauchlin had 23 assists, and junior Vanessa Cerda had 15 digs and four aces.

Kimball’s sophomores beat East Union 2-1, and East Union won the freshman game 2-0.