With a 24-6 record and a strong showing in the always formidable Big 8 Conference, Santa Rosa earned the No. 1 seed in the Northern California Women's Regional Basketball playoffs that start this week.
Fresno City (27-3) is the No. 2 seed.
Local teams include No. 18 Cosumnes River (14-13), which plays at No. 15 De Anza College (17-11) in an outbraket game on Wednesday.
Sierra College, which tied Santa Rosa for Big 8 championship honors, is the No. 3 seed at 21-7. The Wolverines and coach Brandie Murrish play host to No. 14 Mendocino College (19-7) on Friday at 5:30 p.m., before the Sierra men's team plays its NorCal opener. The Wolverines seek their seventh consecutive NorCal Regional title and second state-title appearance since 2007.
Sierra overcame the early season injury losses of starters Dakota McLarnan and Taylor Donott to sweep seven of eight conference foes with an 8-woman roster.
Sierra is led by All-Big 8 first team members Michelle Walker, Kirstie Williams and Kayla
Reeves. Williams, a guard, scores 12.8 points. Walker, a sohomore forward, scores 10.2 points and pulls in 10.5 rebounds a game.
Joie Camalo scores 12.5 a game and Reeves averaged 10.1 points as a shooter. Ericka Magana led Sierra with 4.1 assists and post Jasmine Shedrick averaged 6.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots.
Mendocino is the co-champion of the Bay Valley Conference, led by guard Elisa Vargas (16.7 points, 8 rebounds).
CRC is led by guards Jade Sowell-Hundon with a 14.3 average and Alexis Haffner (11.8).
CRC placed sixth in the brutal Big 8. Delta (19-8) placed third and is seeded fourth and opens against No. 13 Sequoias (16-10).
The state finals return to CRC on March 15 and 17.
- Joe Davidson
- On Twitter: @SacBee_JoeD
- On podcast: ESPN1320.net


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