Crescenta Valley girls’ soccer completes sweep against Burbank
Burbank’s Ryan Verhoeven and Crescenta Valley’s Mallory Hill battle for the ball.
After suffering its first Pacific League loss, the Crescenta Valley High girls’ soccer team looked for a rebound effort when it competed against Burbank on Friday.
The Falcons suffered a loss to Burroughs on Tuesday and sought to erase the sting by getting a breakout effort early versus the Bulldogs.
Crescenta Valley accomplished what it set out to do, as Rachel Bird scored a pair of first-half goal to propel Crescenta Valley to a 4-1 victory.
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“We definitely wanted to come back and getting those goals early on helped a lot,” Bird said. “It’s a really important game and we knew we had to play better.
“We were meshing well and we got a good effort from our defense.”
Crescenta Valley (9-5, 9-1 in league) scored three goals in a nine-minute span to pull away from Burbank (8-3-2, 7-3) and complete a sweep of the two-match season series. Crescenta Valley, ranked 10th in CIF Southern Section Division IV with Oak Hills, registered a 7-5 win at Burbank on Jan. 8 and remains tied in first place with Arcadia.
Bird scored the first two goals Friday for the Falcons and Megan Robertson completed the first-half scoring.
Bird took a pass from Emily Jabourian and lofted a shot past Burbank goalkeeper Nicole Winters to make it 1-0 in the sixth minute. The Bulldogs nearly tied it at 1 about 30 seconds later, but a shot by Kira Bochard struck the crossbar.
Bird made it 2-0 in the 12th minute and Robertson made it 3-0 nearly three minutes later.
“We played a solid game,” Crescenta Valley Coach Tyraysha Peterson said. “We needed to come out and do that and I liked what I saw.
“We got to a lot of loose balls and we had possession of the ball a lot. They had a lot of determination and energy and you could see that throughout the whole game.”
Crescenta Valley made it 4-0 in the 61st minute on a goal by Brianna McReynolds.
Burbank avoided being blanked when it was awarded a penalty shot in the 71st minute after the ball struck a Crescenta Valley defender on the hand inside the box.
Dalia Farazdaghi converted on the shot by beating goalkeeper Nicole Jabourian inside the right post.
Jabourian finished with six saves, including five in the second half.
Burbank Coach Eric Montoya said the Bulldogs couldn’t regroup after falling behind early.
“They beat us in the middle and they have a lot of speed,” said Montoya, who got five saves from Winters. “We just didn’t perform and we’ll look to find a way by coming back and righting the ship.
“I thought we played better in the second half, but we really didn’t put any bodies on their fast players and they got some goals because of that.”
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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
