We had some definite MCAL magic for the Branson Bulls this past weekend. Pulling in 30 points for the Branson Girls was Addie Johnson, handily winning the 800m, 1600m and 3200m, to reign as the Iron Queen. With 16 points, our very bouncy Tara Curtin jumped to second place in both the high jump and long jump. Ivy Brenner threw for an amazing second place - and 8 points - in the shot put. Senior Alexa Polsky scored four points for Branson with a stunning fourth place finish in the 800m, and a personal record of 2:26. Branson girls (Imogen Brown, Elena Trimble, Katya Crawford, and Zoe Hahn) ran for fourth place in the 4x800m. All of these athletes qualified for the regional Class A NCS Championships next Saturday in Santa Rosa. Adding to that group, the Girls 4x400 team (Alexa, Zoe, Elena, Imogen) also qualified for the Class A Championships based on their qualifying time (and tied Novato for 7th place). But there's a whole lot more to this story!

Branson placed first, fourth, and eleventh in the Girls 800m, which is not only remarkable, but we were the only MCAL team with three finalists in the Girls 800m. Ninth grader Zoe Hahn was one of those finalists, with a new personal best of 2:31 and eleventh place overall. Tenth grader Jasper James (our distance team of one) also qualified for the Saturday MCAL finals in the 800m, and ran a personal best of 2:07 for 10th fastest time in the county championships, along with the 13th fastest time in the 1600m prelims! Sizzling! Another tenth grader Emmanuel Katz (our sprinter team of one) ran for 23rd place overall in the 100m and 15th place in the 200m overall county-wide. Thayer Jacobs and Cole Nadershahi threw for 8th and 16th place for shotput and 14th and 16th place for discus county-wide. Senior Shail Belani tied for 7th place in the high jump, and also long jumped to 15th place, followed by teammate Alex LaMonica for 16th place. Parker Wilkinson triple jumped for 12th place. Anna Rende and Khema Klintobeplaced 18th and 27th in the 100m, along with a 10th place for Anna in the long jump. Imogen Brown also sprinted to 14th place in the 400m prelims. Alexa also ran the 14th best time in the 1600m prelims, followed by Paige Macy with a 22nd place run in that event. Sam Lehman threw for a personal best in the shotput. Ivy also threw for 15th place in the discus. Ryka Kashi jumped to 11th place in the high jump.