Burroughs High girls’ basketball plays lights out after lights go out

BURBANK — Perhaps the members of the Burroughs High girls’ basketball team needed a wake-up call following the opening minutes of their game Tuesday night against Duarte.

Competing in the West Coast Holiday Festival Gold Division, host Burroughs appeared a bit sluggish early. Then most of the lights inside the gymnasium went out, causing a 13-minute delay.

Once the lights went back on, Burroughs’ intensity rose.

Davina Del Castillo finished with a game-high 15 points and registered three steals to help Burroughs pick up a 62-40 victory. Burroughs won its eighth game in a row and will meet visiting Bishop Montgomery at 3 p.m. Wednesday in a tournament finale.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that with the lights going out during a game,” Del Castillo said. “We started out slow and maybe the lights going out was a good wake-up call because we definitely picked up our game on both ends of the court.

“Now, we want to finish out [the tournament] strong heading into Pacific League play next week.”

Burroughs held a 5-4 lead when the lights went out with 5:13 remaining in the first quarter. The Indians, who won the league championship last season, then closed out the first half on a 30-10 run to take a 35-14 halftime lead.

Burroughs Coach Vicky Oganyan, whose team improved to 12-2, said the delay probably aided the Indians.

“Maybe it got us more focused,” said Oganyan, who got 13 points from Jordan Meltzer and 11 from Ashley Ibarra to turn back Duarte (7-5). “We’d come out flat to start the game and then we picked it up and had a great second quarter defensively.

“Davina did a great job at attacking the basket and we got some good all-around defense. For us, it’s about defense first and then feeding off that.”

Ibarra made a three-pointer to give the Indians a 23-8 advantage with 5:10 left in the second quarter.

Del Castillo, a reigning All-Area selection, finished with 10 first-half points. Overall, she made seven of nine free-throw attempts. Del Castillo made a pair of free throws to pad Burroughs’ lead to 32-12 with 1:31 left in the first half.

The Indians recorded 12 steals.