Burbank ends skid against Hoover, 70-31
GLENDALE — For the second time this season, a Pacific League boys’ basketball game between Burbank High and Hoover was, for the most part, one-sided.
In their first game Jan. 13, the Bulldogs defeated the Tornadoes by 25 points.
On Hoover’s senior night Friday, the visiting Bulldogs once again overwhelmed the Tornadoes, while keeping their playoff hopes alive with a 70-31 rout.
The win snapped a four-game skid for the Bulldogs in Pacific League play.
Tornadoes Coach Jack Van Patten, who has been on the wrong side of blowouts multiple times this season, initially chose to delay the postgame meeting with his players.
“We started off shooting poorly — that takes a toll. We didn’t run what we wanted to run and we didn’t rebound,” said Van Patten, whose team has dropped 10 of its last 11 games. “Nothing really went right, I guess.”
In a game of daunting statistics for the Tornadoes, the most telling perhaps came at the hands of Burbank’s Andre Spight, who single-handedly matched Hoover in points scored.
In the first quarter, the Bulldogs made as many field goals as the Tornadoes (8-17, 2-10 in league) attempted. But Burbank only held a modest six-point lead, as Spight, along with Caine Brown Kennedy (13 points), scored 16 combined points in the second quarter, as the team shot 10 of 17 from the field and outscored Hoover by 16 in the frame.
At the end of the first half, the Tornadoes totaled more turnovers than field goals, and would trail by no less than 20 for all but a couple seconds of the second half.
Hoover’s five seniors — Andre Aladadyan, Chavez Hall, Nareg Essagholian, Kyle Bernardo and Adeh Navasartian — were recognized during a pregame event, but couldn’t get going in their final home game, combining for 12 points.
Bernardo, the team’s leading scorer this season, finished with two points.
Spight finished with a game-high 31 points on six three-pointers — five in the second half, when the Bulldogs kept up a potent offensive attack, while maintaining the pressure on the other end.
“He had the game he is capable of having,” Hernandez said of his junior guard. “He did a great job of letting the game come to him. When the game comes to him, he’s one of the best players in the area, if not the best.”
The win improved Burbank to 12-13, 4-8.
“Our guys came focused with a lot of energy,” Hernandez said. “We were due for a game like this. We’ve worked hard, but the bounces just haven’t gone our way lately.”
Burbank will need to win its final two games against Arcadia and Burroughs to stay alive for one of the four automatic postseason bids from the Pacific League; although Hernandez said he is confident the team has a good chance at getting an at-large bid if it doesn’t win out.
Hoover will end its Pacific League season on the road as it travels to Pasadena Tuesday with the finale at Glendale Thursday.