Manteca’s girls volleyball team held off Oakdale for a hard-earned sweep and a share of the Valley Oak League championship last week.
The reward: a road match to start the challenging Division II playoffs in the Sac-Joaquin Section.
The postseason begins for some fall sports this week.
Six of the seven Manteca-area schools have qualified for the volleyball playoffs, which begin tonight with first-round matches. The flag football playoffs begin Wednesday, with three local schools participating. Play-in contests for both sports took place on Monday. Sierra’s flag football team lost in a play-in at Lodi, 6-0.
Winners of six straight, Manteca (16-8) is rolling into the volleyball playoffs as the No. 12 seed in D-II. The Buffaloes head to No. 5 El Capitan (23-10), the outright Central California Conference champion. The loaded Division II bracket is topped by Rocklin (30-4). The Thundering Herd and the next three seeds — Woodcreek (35-5), Del Oro (24-10) and St. Francis (30-7) — are all ranked in the top six overall in the SJS, according to MaxPreps ratings. El Capitan sits at No. 12.
The outright Trans Valley League titlists host No. 16 McNair (15-9), which swept Beyer in a play-in match. Ripon Christian (20-10) takes on No. 15 Twelve Bridges (10-17), which needed just three sets to knock off Burbank in the other play-in. The competitive TVL is well represented in the SJS playoffs. In Division IV, Sonora is the No. 1 seed and joined by No. 3 Hughson and No. 4 Escalon, while Hilmar is the second seed in Division V.
Back to Division III, Sierra (7-22) sneaked in as the No. 13 seed and heads to No. 4 Roseville (20-11), champion of the Foothill Valley League.
Lathrop (21-6), following a second consecutive perfect run through the Western Athletic Conference, has another chance to notch its first-ever postseason victory. The Spartans host a familiar foe in No. 10 Los Banos (10-15), which they beat in five sets early in the season. A win likely matches them with Ripon Christian in the quarterfinals, a rematch of their 2024 first-round tilt won by the Knights.
Second-year varsity team River Islands (23-4) is back in the playoffs after a runner-up finish in the Central California Athletic Alliance. The eighth-seeded Riptide will welcome No. 9 Wheatland (13-8), the third-place finisher out of the Pioneer Valley League. The winner likely travels to battle-tested top seed Sonora (16-5).
The girls volleyball finals for all six divisions take place Nov. 8 at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. Semifinalists earn bids to the California Interscholastic Federation Northern Regional Championships
All three local playoff qualifiers in flag football are in Division III, where Lathrop leapfrogged East Union for the No. 2 seed, thanks to its early-season head-to-head win in a non-league thriller.
The first-time WAC champion Spartans (17-3) face No. 15 Ripon (11-13), which makes its postseason debut Wednesday at Lathrop’s Bennie Gatto Field.
East Union (16-5) finished as the MaxPreps second-ranked team in the SJS Division III pool. The VOL champion Lancers host PVL runner-up Wheatland (14-7).
A Division II semifinalist last year, Christian Brothers (15-9) is seeded No. 1 after taking fourth in the competitive Capital Valley Conference.
The flag football championships are also at Cosumnes River College on Nov. 8.
