Boys lacrosse
The Branson Boy’s Lacrosse team is headed into an entirely new direction under head coach Michael Boswell.
The team has only two seniors, Callahan Green and Oliver Broek, but the junior class has stepped up. A lot of juniors on the team are new to lacrosse, but four-year letterman Callahan Green knows their importance to the team.
“The juniors are a huge part of our team. They’ve stepped in well to the leadership roles. Getting them into the culture is important for us, and it’s been a good dynamic so far,” said Green.
Despite most of the team being new to lacrosse, the team is gelling quickly and look to make noise in a competitive MCAL.
“We graduated a lot of guys, so making sure we have the most fun season possible while getting the team ready for the future,” said Green.
Girls lacrosse
Branson has seen a large influx of participation in girls lacrosse the past couple years, and the program is on the upswing. After going 0-8 two years ago, they went 4-4 in MCAL last year, missing out on the playoffs by one game to San Marin. This year, they are determined to make the cut.
“There are four very good teams, we definitely have the San Marin game circled,” said Coach Ashton Richards.
Richards is in his second year as head girls lacrosse coach, and attended a USA Lacrosse coaching conference in Pennsylvania this off-season.
“A lot of it was oriented around defense. The big thing I took away was good defenders are confrontational,” said Richards.
Branson is putting an emphasis this year on defense, and it has shown up on the field. They have only given up more than two goals in one of seven games this year.
Branson’s increase in numbers means the team can now field a JV team. Richards is taking full advantage of this, using his JV team to develop players to be future contributors on varsity.
“We want our JV to be full of kids who will be playing varsity, it’s not just a place to languish,” said Richards.
To coach the JV team, they hired Charlie Fager, head of player development for Southern Marin Wolfpack, a club lacrosse team.
“His expertise is taking kids who are good athletes and turning them into good lacrosse players,” said Richards.
After a rough few seasons, the program is on the rise under Richards’ direction.
