Burroughs girls’ soccer defeats Pasadena, 4-0, behind hat trick from Emma Pineiro

BURBANK — There were two contests in one taking place during Pacific League girls’ soccer action at Burroughs Memorial Field on Wednesday afternoon.

The first revolved around a brutish game in which both teams combined for three cards, two ejections, two warnings against the crowd and a physical level of play that perhaps neither the Bulldogs or Indians were aptly prepared.

The second and most important, revolving around simple wins and losses and league standing, was perhaps lost in the above interference, as host Burroughs, which, behind a hat trick from junior striker Emma Pineiro, was victorious versus Pasadena, 4-0.

“It was definitely a physical game and some of my girls are not used to that stuff,” Burroughs second-year Coach Eddie Garcia said. “I tried to prepare them beforehand for this type of game because we know Pasadena is a physical team.”

Wednesday’s contest hardly seemed destined to be physical, especially after the Indians (6-8-1 overall, 3-0 in league) scored three goals within the first 19 minutes in taking a 3-0 into the half.

Yet, after both teams engaged in a few punishing slide tackles over the first 15 minutes of the second half, frustration began to show when Pasadena halfback Samantha Koemans was taken down from behind in the 57th minute.

Koemans gathered herself, while players from each side began a screaming match as both game officials tried to restore order.

The tackle of Koemans came five minutes after Burroughs defender Taylor Bailey was yellow-carded on a tackle of Pasadena’s Anne Joni Mojica.

Four minutes after Koemans’ free kick, Pasadena (4-6-2, 1-2) picked up a red card when Suzzeth Jimenez was ejected after arguing with the side judge after the Bulldogs took down an Indians player.

Shortly after, in the 65th minute, Bailey picked up her second yellow on a tackle from behind and was also tossed.

While all the aforementioned activity was going on, the game official also warned the Burroughs boys’ soccer team, which had sat on the visitors’ side, to walk over to the home side.

“In a game like this, it was hard to keep my team focused with all the emotion and everything that was going on,” said Pasadena second-year Coach Kamiko Johnson, who was warned in the first half to calm down a few boisterous members of the Bulldogs crowd. “I wanted them to realize that all that mattered was the game and not the officials or anything else that was going on.”

Perhaps the most noteworthy moment of the second half came in the 78th minute when Pineiro received a brilliant through ball from Kelly Arrue and scored from nine yards out to cement the score at 4-0.

“That’s too many hat tricks for me to count, but today was about the team winning,” Pineiro said. “The game never really ends because we were up, 3-0. Teams have come back from those scores and we expected Pasadena to play.”

Pineiro figured prominently in the Indians’ early blitz, when she fired a 12-yard shot for a goal in the second minute, which was created by an assist from Brittany Mata.

Two minutes later, the Indians went up, 2-0, when Mata played goal-scorer and laced a 10-yard shot for a goal on Burroughs’ second shot of the contest.

The Indians’ final score of the first half came in the 19th minute when Arrue stole an errant Bulldogs’ throw and fed Pineiro for a goal.

Pasadena’s best goal-scoring chance came in the 59th minute when a free kick from Koemans bounced off the back foot of Jimenez and was blasted by Mojica from 12 yards.

The shot, though, was stopped by diving goalie Miranda Keakul.