Girls basketball: Sophomores step up to keep Branson’s season alive
Sophomore guards Avery Myerberg and Rosie Slayen are big reasons the Branson School girls basketball team will live to see another day.
In one of their more hectic games of the season, the Bulls survived a 49-45 dogfight against St. Mary’s of Berkeley in the North Coast Section Division IV quarterfinals.
Myerberg tied for game-high honors with 16 points, while Slayen had 13. Plagued by foul trouble throughout the game, All-MCAL senior Hannah Golan had nine points after missing the entire second quarter and nearly half of the second half.
“I knew we could do it without Hannah as long as we had confidence in ourselves, and we kept playing our game and didn’t let ourselves get in our heads,” said Myerberg, who had nine second-quarter points. “And we did that.”
The second-seeded Bulls (17-11) will meet No. 6 Arcata in the NCS semifinals on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Dominican University. Arcata upset No. 3 St. Bernard’s 53-50.
The Bulls received an NCS first-round bye and had not played in a week since falling to Marin Catholic in the MCAL playoff final. Meanwhile, No. 7 St. Mary’s (14-15) had warmed up for Branson with a 10-point first-round win over Justin-Siena and proved just scrappy enough to create a little unrest among the Bulls.
Branson’s troubles started with 6 seconds left in the first quarter when Golan picked up her third foul. With Golan forced to the bench, the Bulls seemed rattled and fell behind 20-16 with 1:26 remaining in the half.
After Branson’s Isabella Arauz-Moore missed the second of two free throws, Jaclyn Rogers snagged the rebound and fed the ball back out to Myerberg. With 9 seconds left, Myerberg nailed a three-pointer to cap the Bulls’ 5-0 run for a 21-20 edge to end the half.
“We have our all-league player out — that just means everyone else has to step up,” said Branson coach Nnenna Okereke. “It’s something that they’re really going to learn from and get so much better.”
The learning experiences continued in the third quarter when Golan picked up her fourth foul at the 5:23 mark. St. Mary’s responded with a 7-0 run for a 30-26 lead midway in the period before the Bulls chipped away to tie things up at 33-33 with eight minutes left to play.
It was Slayen’s turn to make a difference in the fourth quarter. Slayen fueled an 11-2 run with eight points to push the Bulls ahead 44-35 with 3:02 remaining. Golan returned midway in the quarter but only managed a free throw.
St. Mary’s refused to give up and pulled to within a point, but Slayen used a nice feed to Rogers to put the Bulls ahead 46-43 and Branson relied on free throws to seal the win.
“They never gave up and we didn’t either,” said Okereke.
Branson won the NCS Division V playoffs last season and then captured the Division IV state championship.