Burroughs girls’ basketball survives against Burbank
BURROUGHS HIGH — Shooting woes are something the Burroughs High girls’ basketball team is familiar with.
Two days before taking on Burbank Friday in a Pacific League cross-town rivalry contest Friday, the Indians endured a horrendous shooting performance against Arcadia and, as a result, suffered their first league loss.
Although Burroughs didn’t come out and exactly torch the nets against the Bulldogs, it didn’t have as much difficulty scoring in the early going as Burbank did.
Taking advantage of those woes, the Indians jumped out to a big lead at halftime, but had to hold off a surging Burbank team down the stretch to notch a 54-46 victory at home.
The loss knocks Burbank (9-11, 5-2 in league) — which had a five-game league win streak snapped — out of a first-place tie in league. For Burroughs (17-3, 6-1), it was able to stay tied for the lead with Arcadia (16-3, 6-1), which defeated Crescenta Valley, 54-24, on Friday.
“We don’t talk a lot about the standings and how many wins or losses that we have,” Burroughs Coach Vicky Oganyan said. “We just want to come out and play basketball.”
It was a struggle for both teams on offense in the first quarter. But the Bulldogs suffered the most problems, converting just one of 14 field goals. The team’s only points from the field came on a shot by Courtney Seidler at the 5:51 mark for the first points of the contest.
But after that first bucket, Burbank was outscored, 16-3, over the course of the rest of the quarter to fall behind, 16-5, after the first stanza. Burroughs also out-rebounded Burbank, 17-8, in the first.
It was more of the same for Burbank in the second. The team made just two of 12 attempts from the floor to account for a dismal three-of-26 shooting performance in the first half. That allowed the Indians to surge in front by 16 at halftime, 28-12.
“In the first half, we were zero for 11 from under our own basket,” Burbank Coach Bruce Breeden said. “And those were layups. Nobody was on us and they weren’t blocking our shots. That’s how bad it was for us in the first half.”
The Indians made their run in the second quarter on six points from Aysia Shellmire. Shellmire ended with 19 points to go along with nine rebounds. Teammate Davina Del Castillo added 13 rebounds.
The Bulldogs were finally able to turn around their fortunes in the third quarter, when they began to find some rhythm. However, although they were able to cut Burroughs’ lead to 10 points three times in the quarter, they could never whittle the lead down to single digits.
That finally happened in the fourth quarter when a three-pointer by Lysette Perez made it a nine-point game. When Sharis Ghazeri hit a runner with 1:29 remaining, Burbank trailed by only five, 48-43.
But that was as close as the Bulldogs could get.
“I just told my team in the locker room just to play strong and to be mentally prepared because [Burbank] is a lot more experienced than we are,” Shellmire said. “I wanted them to know how important this game was for us.”
Burbank received 13 points from Jamie Gonzalez and 12 points and eight rebounds from Seidler.