Outside shooting vaults Burroughs boys’ basketball over Hoover
It was no surprise to the Burroughs High boys’ basketball team when Hoover came out in a zone defense at the start of Wednesday’s Pacific League game.
“No, no surprise at all,” Burroughs Coach Allan Ellis said. “We expected the zone for sure. We know a lot of teams in league are going to play zone against us. We worked on dealing with the zone in our practice [Tuesday] to be ready for it.”
The zone defense by the Tornadoes took away a lot of opportunities in the middle for the Indians and 6-foot-6 All-CIF Southern Section forward Tristen Hull. In that respect, the defense worked, as the senior was held to six points.
But to combat the defense, instead of going inside, Burroughs went outside.
The Indians hit nine three-pointers and withstood a Hoover comeback attempt in the second half to earn a 64-52 victory at Burroughs High.
Leading the three-point barrage was junior Carson Clarke, who converted four shots from beyond the arc for Burroughs, which is ranked No. 13 in Division II-AA and improved to 10-6, 2-2 in league.
“We have a lot of good outside shooters on the team, not just me,” said Clarke, who finished with a team-high 14 points. “Almost everyone on the team can shoot the three. The coach always gives our shooters the green light if we have the shot.
“If we didn’t have the opportunities in the middle, we knew we had to make our outside shots.”
Burroughs received 12 points from Ryan Del Castillo and Hull had three blocks and five rebounds.
The loss sustained a tough start to the league campaign for the Tornadoes (6-10), who dropped to 0-4 in league. Hoover, led by 18 points from Angel Mino and 12 points and 10 rebounds from Simeon Hilby, closed to within 40-39 with three minutes left in the third quarter before the Indians pulled away, much as they did at the onset of the game.
“I thought we just had a dry spell there and we could have jumped on them and made a bigger push,” Hoover Coach Jack Van Patten said. “In the second half, I really think we had our chance there, but we really didn’t jump on it.
“When we got the lead down to one, it was anyone’s’ game, but they took advantage. … I thought we did play better in the second half.”
It was not a good start to the contest for Hoover, which fell behind, 19-7, after one quarter. Burroughs’ Austin Marx (eight points) got the long-range shooting started in the opening stanza, converting two three-pointers.
Burroughs added to its lead in the second quarter, getting three three-pointers from Clarke. When Clark hit a shot from behind the arc with 4:49 remaining, the Indians increased their lead to 28-15.
Hoover was able to whittle down the lead in the final minutes of the second quarter and went into halftime trailing by eight, 34-26.
In the second half, the Tornadoes began to chip away at the Burroughs lead. Sparked by six points in the stanza by Simeon Hilby (12 points, 10 rebounds), Hoover got to within one, 40-39, on a basket from Davit Pirijanyan (10 points, seven rebounds) with 3:01 remaining.
But the Indians scored four unanswered points to end the third and held a 44-39 lead after three.
Burroughs kept up the momentum in the fourth quarter and held a 15-point advantage, 58-43, with 3:59 left, forcing Hoover to foul in the final minutes.
Argam Agnajani added eight points and six rebounds for the Tornadoes.
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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com
Twitter: @jefftsports
