Burbank football smothers Burroughs for big victory
The calling card this season for the Burbank High football team has been its stingy defense.
In the annual Big Game cross-town rivalry Friday evening against Burroughs, that defense came calling and the Indians seemed powerless to stop it.
The Bulldogs shut out Burroughs until the final 15 seconds of the game, almost completely neutralized Burroughs star running back Chance Bell and jumped out to an early lead. All that led to a 36-7 victory by the Bulldogs at Memorial Field.
It was the most lopsided Big Game since Burroughs beat Burbank, 58-22, in 2008, and the biggest Bulldogs rivalry win since it defeated Burroughs, 44-8, in 1969.
Burbank (7-3, 6-1 in league) finished the season in second place behind Crescenta Valley (9-1, 7-0), which captured its first league championship in two years. The Bulldogs, ranked No. 10 in CIF Southern Section Division VIII, will now prepare for the playoffs, with brackets set to be unveiled on Sunday.
Burroughs, last season’s league champion, finished 4-6, 3-4.
The Burbank defense set the tone early Friday and was relentless. The Bulldogs hounded Bell, a senior who has committed to San Diego State and who had gained more than 2,000 yards and had 28 touchdowns coming into the game. Bell ended a frustrating night with 20 carries for 11 yards with no touchdowns. Ten of those carries were for zero or negative yards.
“We know [Bell] is a stud and we have seen what he’s capable of doing,” Burbank Coach Richard Broussard said. “We knew if we kept him out of the end zone that we would have a pretty good chance at winning the game. That was really our one goal and we accomplished that goal.
“Our guys just carried out our game plan to a tee. I am so proud of all of those guys and especially the way the defense played.”
With their first and second string quarterbacks sidelined with injuries, the Indians went with sophomore Nathan Piper for the second straight game. The signal-caller had his share of problems, including throwing a pair of interceptions to junior Kaydon Spens.
When its offense sputtered, Burroughs went to the wildcat behind Bell. However, that offensive change proved ineffective.
“Our offense was pretty inept,” Burroughs Coach Mike Reily said. “Not a whole lot was working for us. Burbank has a great defense and they were definitely taking advantage of our shortcomings.
“The wildcat was something that we had been practicing the last couple of weeks and we ran it a little here and there. …We thought that it would give us some kind of a spark, but it really didn’t.”
Burbank was able to run the ball against Burroughs, getting two touchdowns from junior Darnell Williams (11 carries for 68 yards) and one each from senior Nick Warren (16 carries for 53 yards) and senior Joey Miller (eight carries for 81 yards).
The Bulldogs also had some success passing, as senior quarterback Guy Gibbs completed eight of 17 passes for 128 yards and one touchdown. However, he did throw two interceptions.
On its first drive of the game, Burbank scored and converted a two-point conversion to take an 8-0 lead. The Bulldogs increased their advantage to 22-0 at halftime.
In the first half, Burbank held Burroughs to just 10 yards of total offense.
Fourteen points by Burbank in the third quarter and a 36-0 lead prompted a running clock in the fourth quarter.
The Indians avoided the shutout with a touchdown with 15.4 seconds remaining. Junior Davin Harrison took a lateral and threw a 44-yard scoring pass to junior Gavin Aguilar.
“We had a tough loss last week [against Crescenta Valley] and we just wanted to come in motivated for this one,” Burbank senior linebacker Andy Reyes said. “We worked a lot in practice on keying on [Bell] and we just wanted to be all over him any time he got the ball. We also watched film on him and really studied him and it all paid off.”
Burbank has defeated Burroughs the last four out of five years in the Big Game.
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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com
Twitter: @jefftsports
