Burroughs sees playoffs hopes dim with loss to Muir
BURBANK — Any CIF Southern Section playoff hopes substantially dimmed for the Burroughs High football team Friday evening.
The Indians came into the Pacific League contest tied for fourth place with Muir. When the night was over, Burroughs found itself knocked further down the league rung.
The Indians couldn’t stop the Muir running game and suffered a 40-17 loss at Memorial Field.
The loss lowers the Indians (3-4, 2-3 in league) into a tie for fifth place in league with two games remaining in the regular season. Only the top three finishers in the league earn automatic berths into the playoffs.
“We have goals and we’ve discussed how a loss against Arcadia started making our goals difficult,” said Burroughs coach Mike Reily, whose team missed the playoffs in 2016. “Then losing against Crescenta Valley further made our goals hard to reach.
“We just needed to show up and execute our game and we had some problems doing that tonight.”
Burroughs’ Ben Peters had another huge game with 163 yards in 24 carries and two touchdowns.
But the ground game for Muir (5-3, 3-2) was hard for the Indians to stop. Senior Jonathan Stephens covered the most real estate for the Mustangs, carrying the ball 19 times for 197 yards and three touchdowns. Junior Jalique Stephens had 18 caries for 67 yards.
“Their best running back was a load,” Reily said. “He was a very physical, very tough runner … but hats off to that kid, he did some great things.”
The Indians took an early lead against the Mustangs when when senior Jonathan Rivas booted a 34-yard field goal with 8:40 left in the opening quarter.
But Muir scored two consecutive touchdowns and went into the first break with a 14-3 lead.
Burroughs cut into the lead, 14-10, on a 15-yard touchdown run by Peters with 10:30 remaining in the second quarter.
The Mustangs tallied one more touchdowns in the second quarter and went into halftime up 21-10.
“I think this was a must-win game for us,” Peters said. “We know we had to win out if we wanted to make the playoffs.
“But tonight we had some good things, but we also had a lot of bad things.”
The Indians opened the third quarter with an eight-yard touchdown run by Peters at the 4:03 mark to make it a one-possesson game, 24-17. However, that would be all the scoring the Indians could muster the rest of the way, as Muir tacked on 16 straight points.
Burroughs plays against Hoover next week and ends the regular season Nov. 3 against crosstown rival Burbank.
“We have got some kids who were banged up, more so tonight than in other games,” Reily said. “So we need to assess those injuries and kind of go from there and try and put something together.”
Prior to the game, the Indians honored the latest group into the Burroughs High Athletic Hall of Fame. The 2017 induction class included: Kyle Cremarosa, JK Scott, Emily Tubert, Greg Switzer, Randy Simmrin, Ronald Weckbacher and Debbie Gudzin.
Twitter: @jefftsports
