Bishop O'Dowd have been maintaining their winning ways, defeating the Rio Linda Knights 31-0 last weekend. The Dragons are now 3-0 in Northern California's girls varsity gold division.

"Rio Linda are young and rebuilding this season," Bishop O'Dowd director of rugby Ray Lehner said. "Therefore, we played most of our reserve grade players. Flankers Haley Bunder and Deja Pointer were very destructive, and flyhalf Nicole Ratto was a brilliant game manager. She rarely makes a poor decision."

The previous weekend, the Dragons impressed during their second league win, downing rival Mother Lode 53-10 in a one-sided affair. That game marked Bishop O'Dowd's first-ever victory against Mother Lode, one of the top two teams in NorCal in recent years. With the victory, the Dragons have been pinned as the best competition for league favorite Sacramento Amazons. The two teams will play on April 20.

But there's a lot of rugby before the peak of the regular season, and Bishop O'Dowd will take on Danville this Friday for the fourth of their eight league matches. Danville has banked a couple of big wins thus far - 87-5 over Lobo, 36-7 over Pleasanton - so expect to see the Dragons' top 15 setting the pace.