Burbank girls’ basketball drops league opener against Arcadia
ARCADIA — Burbank High girls’ basketball set the pace and tempo early in its Pacific League opener Tuesday against host Arcadia.
The Bulldogs defense forced the Apaches to miss their first seven shots of the game and took an early lead. But Arcadia bounced back in the second quarter to outscore Burbank in the frame.
Arcadia went on to throw Burbank off of its rhythm and as a result, won the league contest, 51-39, as the Bulldogs struggled to find their scoring touch.
The Bulldogs held a 6-0 lead at the 4:02 mark in the first quarter before the Apaches scored their first points of the game.
Burbank (6-4) led by three by the end of the period, 7-4, but Arcadia was able to tie the score at 8 early in the second quarter before heading on a 6-0 run late in the half for a 16-10 lead.
“We need to slow things down and calm down and not play out of control,” Burbank co-head coach Jett Del Mundo said. “I think the reason they caught us because we got out of control. We gave them too many touches. You give a good team that many turnovers, they’re going to convert, even if they’re going to make half of them.”
Burbank pulled to 18-15 at halftime, as senior forward Osana Tirityan scored five consecutive points.
The Bulldogs struggled from the field in the second quarter, going two for 11 from two-point range and two of seven from beyond the arc.
The Apaches, meanwhile, were a perfect four for four from the line and knocked down three of of seven from inside the key with only one from three-point range.
“We were just trying to figure out how to rotate the ball to get the inside players open,” said Tirityan, who finished with a team-high 15 points and tallied 10 rebounds. “We were trying to get looks, but that wasn’t working, so we resorted to our shooters.
“Attacking the basket helped a lot and we started getting some calls that helped open up the floor.”
The Bulldogs tied it at 18 early in the second half off of a three-pointer from junior guard Bri Castro, before taking a two-point lead courtesy of a Tirityan layup.
But the Apaches (10-1) scored seven unanswered points to take a 25-20 lead midway in the third.
Burbank pulled to within three again late in the period, but another 7-0 run to end the quarter by Arcadia gave the Apaches a 35-25 lead.
“They do a good job [at Burbank] — they’ve always got something up their sleeves, so we just had to adjust,” Arcadia coach Adam Conover said. “It took us a lot longer to adjust.”
The Apaches led by 12 points and maintained their lead throughout the final quarter, as Del Mundo and the Bulldogs looked to a smaller lineup to try to comeback.
“We had to change tempo because they were getting away from us.” Del Mundo said. “With Tirityan out of the game, we wanted to see where we could play. We went small-ball, and we played them even pretty much the entire quarter, but when you’re down 10, you can’t play them even.
“It’s just one of those things where you have to learn and grow as a team.”
Burbank trailed,, 16-14, after the final quarter.
Bulldogs senior forward Sofia Aslanyan added 10 points and six rebounds and senior point guard Emily Monterey had four steals.
Ashley Sue posted a game-high 18 points for Arcadia.
Twitter: @ReporterVince