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Flintridge Sacred Heart polo opens season with win at Burbank’s expense

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LA CAÑADA — Burbank High’s girls’ water polo team was looking for its first win of the season after falling short in its previous three when it faced Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy on Monday in a nonleague contest.

For the Tologs, they were anxious to see what they could do in their opener after starting the season late.

Flintridge Sacred Heart erased any doubts early on that it might be rusty with the lack of competitive experience, as the Tologs took control from the outset and cruised to an easy 15-2 victory at home.

“The girls have been dying to get into the pool and actually play another team,” said Tologs Coach Carlos Ponce, whose team will get its share of experience with a nonleague contest against Glendale on Wednesday before taking part in the Los Altos Tournament Friday and Saturday. “We have been practicing and scrimmaging a little against ourselves, but you really don’t get the complete feel of the game until you go against someone else.

“Being our first game, I think we were a little too eager in the first four minutes or so. But after that, I thought that we settled down and started playing better.”

It was a second straight rough outing for Burbank (0-4), which lost to Calabasas, 3-0, in nonleague match Thursday.

“We are really starting from scratch this season and, at times, it can be very frustrating,” Burbank Coach Allyson Young said. “Last year, we had players who we could just give them the ball and they would make things happen, but we just don’t have that this year. It seems like, for a lot of them, they are learning the game all over again.

“Sometimes I’m having to tell them who to pass the ball to because they can’t see what to do. Hopefully it can start to click at practice, so we don’t have many more games like this.”

The Flintridge Sacred Heart defense clamped down on the Burbank offense, affording the Bulldogs few opportunities around the goal. The Tologs denied Burbank on all seven of its man-advantage opportunities.

Sacred Heart was paced by Zoe Drobenko, who tallied a match-high six goals. Teammate Emily Gray added three goals to go with four steals.

“We were really prepared for this game and we were really excited and amped up,” Drobenko said. “I think we did pretty well today. We worked together and I think we are improving as a team. We lost a lot of players from last year and we’ve really been able to come together so far.”

On the bright side for Burbank, goalkeeper Clare Griffin kept things from getting more out of hand by making 10 saves.

The Tologs catapulted to an early lead, outscoring the Bulldogs, 4-0, in the first quarter. The Sacred Heart defense allowed Burbank just three shots in the opening stanza.

Sacred Heart tallied the first two goals of the second quarter before the Bulldogs were finally able to break the shutout with a goal by Lexi Lyneis with 2:51 remaining to make it 6-1. The Tologs tacked on two more goals late in the second and went into half with a 8-1 cushion.

The Tologs built a 12-1 lead in the third before Sune Aghakarian scored for Burbank to make it 12-2.

“There are some things that we did OK today, but there’s still things that we have to work on, like our passing,” Ponce said. “But we are going to play a lot this week, so hopefully that will help and we will get better.”

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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com

Twitter: @jefftsports

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