Tehachapi News

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The Starlings National Championships began on June 18th in San Diego with Sarah Carpenetti kicking off the Opening Ceremony by singing the National Anthem before the 116 teams assembled from around the nation.
Competing in the 18s Division, the Tehachapi contingent had three 15 year old players in Jessica Durham, Jami Lankin and Sarah Horcher, plus three 16 year olds in Sarah Carpenetti, Kelsey Kapitzke, and Makenna Boyer. Two “seasoned seventeens“, Sam Nunnally and Aly Pulford, round out the roster.
In the first day of pool play, Tehachapi defeated West LA, San Diego City and Bakersfield in the San Diego gymnasium.
“The playing conditions were tough, more like a sauna with nearly 100% humidity and 110 degree heat and rising to 113 degree heat on the third day,” said coach Charles Horcher. “The conditions were particularly tough on Tehachapi which had only one substitute compared with three or more for most of the other teams but I thought we did well.”
On the second day of pool play, Tehachapi defeated Castle Park and San Diego Navajo before narrowly losing to San Gabriel-Rich, last year’s champions.  The San Gabriel match brought spectators from throughout the gym.
“Players from nearby courts even paused their matches to enjoy ours,” Horcher said. 
Even with the loss, Tehachapi qualified for the Gold Division playoffs where in double elimination bracket play Tehachapi lost a three game heart breaker to San Gabriel-Allen, the eventual winner of the competition. Tehachapi then lost again to San Gabriel-Rich by a total of only six points out of 102.  The loss brought Tehachapi’s 117 game season to an end.
“The referee congratulated both teams, saying that it had been the most exciting match she had ever seen and she is a high performance referee,” Horcher added.
For the season, Tehachapi amassed 1152 kills, 428 aces, and 107 stuff blocks. As a team, Tehachapi racked up an amazing 35% kill rate and nearly 18% of all serves resulted in aces. Individual stats leaders included co-captain Sarah Horcher with 409 kills and a 47.4% kill rate, followed by Makenna Boyer with 275 kills and 34.1%. Jessica Durham, who was sidelined early in the season by back surgery, still managed an impressive 36% kill rate in the early season. Serving ace leaders were Kelsey Kapitzke with 86 aces, Sarah Horcher with 67, with Aly Pulford and Makenna Boyer tied at 64 aces each.  Sam Nunnally, who rejoined the team late in the season following knee surgery, had the highest percentage of aces at 29.7%. Kelsey also led the team in stuff blocks with 31, followed by Sarah Horcher with 30 and Sarah Carpenetti at 24.
Junior co-captain and primary setter Aly Pulford led the team both on the court and in assists with 701. Aly also had both the highest serving accuracy percentage at 93.2% as well as the second highest total in-court serves in at 357. The highest in-court server was Makenna Boyer at 378 serves delivered on target. Right side hitter and defensive specialist Jami Lankin led the team in back row kills with 19 and turned in solid performances in serve receiving and digging up spikes to the back ro