Burbank volleyball swept by Arcadia in league finale
ARCADIA — When the Burbank High boys’ volleyball team faced Arcadia this season in March, the Bulldogs rolled to a convincing Pacific League sweep.
In the teams’ second meeting Tuesday evening, it was another sweep and a lopsided result.
However, this time the tables were turned, as it was the Apaches who steamrolled to a 25-15. 25-19, 25-23 victory against visiting Burbank in the Pacific League finale.
The Bulldogs (19-9, 9-3 in league), who are tied for 10th in CIF Southern Section Division II, had nothing to play for as far as the final league standings were concerned against Arcadia (20-9, 7-5)
Coming into the contest, Burbank had already locked up second place behind champion Burroughs, which secured its ninth straight league title. It is the Bulldogs’ third runner-up finish in the past five seasons.
“We may have come into to this one a little cocky after beating them the first time,” Burbank coach Karl Rojo said. “We are trying to fight some complacency towards the end of our regular season. We are trying to find a way to get back up.
“The sense that I was feeling today is it was like we had already locked up second place and it didn’t matter if we won or lost. So it was that complacency that really hurt us. … It wasn’t our best effort.”
Burbank was led by Rory Rickey, who had a team-high 14 kills. Jonathan Ragheb added 12 kills, Brian Valmonte had 35 assists and Edward Curren contributed 16 digs.
The Bulldogs had problems containing Arcadia outside hitter Bryan Liu.
Liu paced the Apaches in the opening game, tallying eight kills. After three ties in the early going of game one, Arcadia took the lead, 5-4, on an ace from Ryuen Le. Arcadia increased its lead to 15-9, before the Bulldogs went on a 3-0 run to cut the advantage to 15-12. But that would be as close as Burbank would come, as the Apaches finished the game by winning the final six points.
“I think it was a combination of [Arcadia] being improved since the last time we played them and us not playing our best,” Rickey said. “We had a lot of mistakes on our end and that really hurt us.
“I do think complacency crept up on us and we didn’t play our best. Maybe it had something to do with this being our last league game.”
In the second game, Arcadia seized the momentum from the get-go, jumping out to a six-point lead, 12-6, on a dink kill from Savvas Andreou. The Bulldogs didn’t let the game get out of hand, however, and fought back to within two, 19-17, on a kill by Rickey. Burbank was still within three late, 22-19, before Arcadia finished the stanza on a 3-0 spurt.
Trailing 2-0, the Bulldogs played better in the third game and held a four-point advantage, 12-8, following an Apaches net violation. Burbank increased its lead to 21-15 and looked to be surging to a victory. But the Apaches bounced back. Arcadia took a 24-23 lead on a kill by Andreou and closed out the match when a ball rolled off the top of the net and landed on the Burbank side for the winner.
The Bulldogs, who qualified for the postseason for the sixth consecutive season, will learn their playoff fate when the CIF office releases the pairings Friday.
Twitter: @jefftsports
