Burroughs girls’ basketball clamps down on Burbank for city triumph

BURBANK — Focus on the most prolific scorer had opposite effects for the Burbank and Burroughs high girls’ basketball teams in their first meeting of the season.

Burroughs’ defensive strategy to double — and sometimes triple team — Burbank’s Osanna Tirityan was successful as it led to a double-digit victory over a Bulldogs squad that is often dependent on their junior guard and thus, had just three players score.

The Indians, meanwhile, saw balanced scoring resulting from good ball movement, led by Faith Boulanger’s 18 points in a 54-42 Pacific League victory at Burbank High on Friday evening.

Tirityan still led all scorers with 19 points. Sofia Aslanyan (15 points) and Jayla Flowers (eight points) were the two Bulldogs to score.

“The game plan defensively was to stop Osanna,” said Burroughs coach Vicky Oganyan, whose team improved to 13-8, 4-3 in league. “It’s hard to stop her with one player, we put two, sometimes three. And we wanted to limit them to one shot.”

Burroughs used its length to out rebound Burbank (8-13, 3-4). Marin Grote led the team with nine rebounds, with Kayla Wrobel and Dyani Del Castillo each grabbing seven.

The Bulldogs never led after the first quarter, but did get off to a 8-0 start to the game in front of the home crowd.

It wasn’t until Camryn Lotka’s three-pointer with 1:19 left in the first when the Indians took a lead they’d never give up.

A 10-0 run to end the first carried the momentum into a second quarter in which Burroughs would outscore Burbank 16-4 to take a 32-15 lead at halftime, capped off by a pretty drive and layup by Ariana Farias at the buzzer.

“We got the early lead and got comfortable,” Burbank coach John Wells said. “We let them back in it instead of staying on the gas pedal. Said, ‘We got this,’ didn’t keep at it and got out hustled.

“They wanted to control [Tirityan], take her out of the game. Sophia made shots in the first half, but we didn’t go back to it. We went away from what was working.”

Burbank cut the deficit to single digits twice in the third quarter, but Burroughs had an answer each time, mainly from behind the arc where they connected on five in the second half.

Del Castillo finished with 10 points. Grote led the Indians with five assists.

“First couple minutes were the first moments of Burbank-Burroughs basketball for some of our players,” Oganyan said. “We didn’t follow the game plan, but eventually settled down.”