Ripon has a long road ahead to the California Interscholastic Federation State Championships.

Rival Ripon Christian has a far more favorable outlook with first-round bye and a No. 1 seed, as it eyes a third state crown in four years.

The 47th California Interscholastic Federation Girls Volleyball Championships begin today with the first round of regional play.

After dropping a five-set heartbreaker to Christian Brothers in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III final on Saturday, Ripon (28-5) found out the next day that it is on the road for the first round of the NorCal playoffs.

As the No. 15 seed in Division II, the Indians are likely to be on the road for the entire tournament, should they begin another postseason winning streak. They’re headed to Sacramento tonight to face second-seeded St. Francis (32-8).

Ripon’s neighbor, Ripon Christian, has known the feeling to be on that side of “competitive equity,” getting the bump-up in divisions with low seeds for NorCal play for three straight seasons. The Knights overcame the odds, winning the Division IV state crown in Division IV as the NorCal No. 9 seed and the Division III championship in Division III as the NorCal No. 13.

This time, the Knights (22-11) get to enjoy home cooking as the top seed in Division IV. They won’t play until Thursday against the winner of the 8-9 matchup between Northern Section Division III finalist West Valley (23-9) of Cottonwood or SJS Division III semifinalist Roseville (22-12).

Christian Brothers, which defeated Ripon Christian in four sets to reach the SJS final against Ripon, is seeded 12th in the NorCal Division II bracket. Topping Division II is Palo Alto (21-9), an Open Division qualifier in the Central Coast Section.

Ripon will encounter a battle-tested club in St. Francis, which finished as part of a three-way tie in the ultra-tough Sierra Foothill League. The Troubadours were swept by SFL rival Rocklin in a SJS Division II semifinal. Rocklin went on to claim the section title, while fellow SFL co-champion Folsom seized the Division I crown. Both were selected to the state tournament’s Open Division.

St. Francis has beaten Ripon in all four of their previous meetings since 2019, all of them in best-of-three, pre-league tournaments. The Troubadours are led by third-year junior Hailey Sutton, a highly-productive, all-around outside hitter with a team-high 327 kills, 67 aces and 355 digs.

St. Francis is back in the NorCal regional after missing out the past two seasons. Coach Taryn Campbell was a member of the St. Francis 2005 state championship team, and her title-round record of 12 aces still stands.

Ripon is in the NorCal playoffs for a fifth consecutive year but has not won a match in this tournament since 2018 when it advanced to the regional final and lost in five sets.

The state finals for all divisions is on Nov. 21-22 at Santiago Canyon College in Orange.