Lady Dragons rally, fall in OT

Playing a strong East Bay opponent and North Coast Section Division-3 foe, the Sonoma Valley High School’s young varsity basketball girls, suddenly found themselves staring at a 12-7 first-quarter deficit to Acalanes in Saturday’s nonleague clash at Pfeiffer Gym.

Coming into the preseason showdown undefeated, Acalanes stretched its advantage to 24-15 at the half before the Lady Dragons finally found their groove behind junior Jenny Eggers’ standout performance and put together an uplifting second-half comeback.

The Sonoma girls rallied with 11-8 and 16-10 third- and fourth-quarter runs, respectively, to tie the visiting Dons at 42-42 and send the game into overtime.

Unfortunately, in the low-scoring extra period, Acalanes managed to tally one more point than the Lady Dragons and escaped the Valley still unbeaten in six games with a 48-47 nail-biting win.

Pacing Sonoma (3-3) were Eggers’ game- and career-high 23 points, including five treys and one rebound shy of a double-double with nine boards; senior Alexa Hall’s eight points; junior Bella Bollman’s four points, three assists and two steals; junior Sami Von Gober’s three points and seven rebounds; junior Rocky Darnell’s three points; senior Shelby Camilleri and junior Renee O’Donnell’s two points and five rebounds each; and sophomore Kayla Field’s two points and three rebounds.

“This game was lost through turnovers. We couldn’t stop throwing the ball to the other team,” said Sonoma head coach Sil Coccia. “We went to a zone in the second half and started climbing back in the game. We got up by one late and then they made a basket, and then we got two shots off at the end but came up empty. I’ll take a game where we shoot 50 percent from the floor and make eight threes anytime, and if we cut down the turnovers, this was a win. The girls showed tremendous resilience and grit in coming back from down big to nearly win the game. Time to regroup and get ready for Justin on Saturday.”

The Lady Dragons have two more nonleague home games coming up, hosting Justin-Siena on Saturday, Dec. 20 – the freshmen start at 4:30, the junior varsity play at 6, and the varsity tips off at 7:30 p.m. – and Novato on Tuesday, Dec. 23, before traveling to Arizona for the annual holiday Cactus Jam Dec. 26 to 30.