Sonoma Valley Girls Hope for Fairytale Outing in Thursday's Playoff Game

Sonoma Valley High's girls basketball team is nothing if not realistic.

The eighth-seeded Lady Dragons rallied to stop No. 9 Hercules to open the North Coast Section Division III playoffs on Tuesday.

That earned them the opportunity to travel to Oakland to take on top-seeded Northern California powerhouse Bishop O'Dowd, a team that drew a first-round bye.

"Bishop O'Dowd is a really, really good team," said Lady Dragons' junior star Annie Studdert after the win over Hercules. "Anything can happen. Maybe we can be Cinderella on Thursday."

Studdert, a gifted scorer and defender, just means it will take a fairytale ending for the Lady Dragons to get by Bishop O'Dowd.

Head coach Sil Coccia agrees.

"If we play our very best game and O'Dowd has an off night, we have a chance," he said. "If we can make shots and slow them defensively, we can compete. We need to rebound better than we ever have. It's all about defense and rebounding."

Coccia eventually got on the fairytale, tournament-magic bandwagon with Studdert.

"The college basketball tournament is called 'March Madness' for a reason. It's madness," he said. "Favored teams lose. Underdogs pull off upsets all the time. It's madness at this time of the year and there's no reason we can't be part of it."

Sonoma Valley's versatile senior guard Ellie Ceja, a 5-foot-7 performer who rebounds as though she is 6-foot-2, said that Lady Dragons know what it will take against Bishop O'Dowd.

"We have to play our game the best we can. If we hold teams under their season scoring average, we can win," she said. "Holding Bishop O'Dowd is hard. They have a great team."

The winner of Thursday's game advances to the North Coast Section Division III semifinals next week.

The fourth-seeded Sonoma Academy girls beat No. 13 seed Bentley Upper School, 62-51, to advance in the NCS Division V playoffs on Wednesday.

Sonoma Academy adavances with a 24-4 mark to play at Hoopa Valley (16-9). The Warriors were 68-34 winners over Fremont Christian on Wednesday.

Sonoma Academy faces a 310-mile, 6-hour drive from Sonoma County to the Hupa Indian Reservation in extreme Northern California for Saturday's game at 7 p.m.

The Sonoma Academy boys fell to top seeded St. Joseph's Notre Dame of Alameda, 60-39, and were eliminated from Division V play Wednesday.