Ukiah High School’s varsity football team will play in a championship game Friday after a lucky bounce of the ball got them past the top seed in the eight-team bracket last week. 

The Ukiah Wildcats will play in the Division 3 championship in the North Coast Section of the California Interscholastic Federation at 7 p.m. Friday against El Cerrito High School. The game will be played at a neutral site at American Canyon High School. 

Fifth-seed Ukiah made it to the championship after last Friday’s semifinal against the No. 1-seed Vintage High School from Napa was decided by a two-point conversion try that bounced off a referee and into the arms of a Wildcat player for what ended up being the go-ahead and final score of the 21-20 game. 

Ukiah (8-4) beat Antioch High School 26-15 in their first-round game before beating Vintage last week. No. 3 El Cerrito defeated Rancho Cotate High School from Rohnert Park 26-9 in their semifinal game. 

The game will kick off at 7 p.m. at 3000 Newell Drive in American Canyon and will also be live-streamed online here. 

This story originally appeared in The Mendocino Voice.

Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.