Around the league: fall sports come to an end
MCHS Varsity boys cross country team pose with their championship banner after winning NBL (Curtesy of Michael Lucid)
By Luke Shimer, sports editor
Football: Our MCHS football team finished the season with a 4-6 record and ranked 7th in NCS Division 4. Even with things not going our way with last-second losses and many crucial injuries, the Pumas have improved very much from last year and hope to continue this success into the future.
Volleyball: The volleyball team finished 6th in NCS Division 2 with a record of 24-8, making it to the NCS playoffs. In their first playoff game, they went against the Los Lomas Knights, defeating them 3-1 and making it to the 2022 North Coast Section Girls Volleyball Championships quarterfinals, where they faced the Marin Catholic Wildcats and lost 0-3 ending their amazing season.
Women’s Tennis: The MCHS women’s tennis team finished with an undefeated 18-0 season to continue their long undefeated streak. With our top three players being seniors Kayla Nguyen, Colleen Morris, and junior Kailyn Shin. Nguyen got second place in the NBL championships while Morris finished in third, both falling to the winner, Montgomery High School junior Caroline Beard. In the NCS Division 1 singles tournament, we came in as the number nine seed and faced Tamalpais High School, winning 4-3. Going into the quarter-finals, we faced the number one-seeded Redwood High School and unfortunately lost 6-1. In the NCS Division 1 doubles tournament, MCHS featured two doubles teams made up of Nguyen and Morris, the second team being Shin and senior Shruti Pillai. Nguyen and Morris made it to the quarter-finals before losing to Dougherty Valley High School. Overall, it was a super impressive season for our tennis team.
Cross Country: The Men’s Cross Country team brought home their 10th consecutive North Bay League Oak Division Title, being led by senior Sean Gubera, who placed third as they put six athletes in the top eleven finishers, securing the victory with ease. This was Puma's 16th league pennant, which passed Montgomery High School for the most pennants in the entire league. The women’s team placed second to an amazing Montgomery team at League Finals. The Pumas placed 2nd at NCS, with our top finisher being junior Gabe Sitton placing their five scoring runners within seven seconds of each other, an impressive feat. The women placed fourth, being led by an amazing sixth-place performance from junior Gracie Trenam that drove the pumas to a trip to the state meet. The Pumas both punched their tickets to the 2022 CIF Division 3 Cross Country Championships, where the men placed 16th out of 25 teams, and the women placed 15th out of 25 teams in the entire state, with the top runners being seniors Benjamin Choe and Rebekah Taylor. The pumas missed their goals for the state meet this year, but this brought an end to another amazing season for our cross-country teams. Since training has started non-stop since June, the pumas now go into the off-season to get some well-deserved rest until Track season this spring.