Burroughs polo continues challenging schedule with loss
BURBANK — After winning a CIF Southern Section Division V championship and placing second in the Pacific League in 2016, Burroughs High looked to prime for another successful season with a challenging nonleague schedule.
Coming into Thursday’s nonleague match against Temple City, the Indians had played five opponents ranked among the top 10 in their respective CIF Southern Section divisions.
The Rams, who are listed among “others’ in the current Division IV poll, gave Burroughs another tough challenge. Burroughs fell behind early and couldn’t make up the deficit in a 13-11 loss at home.
“We know the only way we’re going to get better is to play against tough teams,” said Burroughs’ Chase Legoretta, who had a team-high four goals. “We want to play teams that are at or above our level.
“It’s not about the wins right now, it’s more about getting better and improving as a team.”
Thursday’s match was the final nonleague tune-up for Burroughs (7-7), which opens Pacific League play Thursday at Arcadia, which is ranked No. 3 in Division V.
JJ Ambartsumyan had three goals, Vahagn Saakyan added two goals and David Arakelyan had a goal and seven steals for Burroughs.
As has been a trend this season, the Indians fell behind early against Temple City (7-0).
“There were some things that we needed to capitalize on that we didn’t today,” Burroughs coach Jacob Cook said. “Sometimes it takes us a little time to adapt to a team and that sometimes leads to a slow start for us.
“There are still some guys that we have missing that we are expecting to get back next week.”
The Indians fell behind, 3-0, when the Rams scored on their third straight shot with 4:19 left in the first quarter. Burroughs battled back, however, getting a goal with 24 seconds left my Marko Vucetic to cut the deficit to 5-4 after one quarter.
Burroughs stayed within reach of the lead and was able to tie the score at 6 with 4:12 remaining in the second on a goal by Legoretta. The Rams scored the next three goals and went into halftime with a 9-6 advantage.
Paced by goalkeeper Bryan Lee (13 saves), the Rams increased their lead to 12-8 after three quarters.
The Indians whittled the lead down to 13-11 with a goal by Legoretta with 3:55 left in the game. Burroughs had a chance to get to within one with a man-advantage situation with 1:46 left, but a shot went wide.
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