Burroughs polo looks sharp in win against Monrovia

BURBANK — The members of the Burroughs High boys’ water polo team just wanted to get into the pool this week and face an opponent to begin their season — any opponent.

Under the direction of a new coach, the Indians were finally able to kick off their campaign Monday, rolling to an easy nonleague victory against Mark Keppel.

Burroughs looked to build on that success Wednesday when it hosted Monrovia in a nonleague contest. After a slow start, the Indians were able to create separation in the second quarter, led by a solid defensive effort and poor shooting from the Wildcats.

The end result was a fairly easy 13-4 victory for the Indians.

“We don’t want to take any teams for granted and we want to play hard against everyone,” said first-year Indians Coach Michael Singhanate, a 2008 Burroughs graduate. “Everything goes with our players, the success and the wins. They have been working very hard.”

The Indians got Singhanate his first coaching win against Mark Keppel, 11-4, as the coach said his players were itching to finally be able to square off against someone other than themselves.

“They did work over the summer and we have been waiting for the season to finally start,” Singhanate said. “I can already see improvement in them since the summer. They have dropped time, they have improved speed and their ball handling has also gotten a lot better.

“We are still working on some things and that’s just going to take time.”

The Indians (2-0) did a good job at converting on their man-advantage opportunities against Monrovia (1-3). After a Monrovia kick-out, the Indians notched the first goal of the match, scored by Burroughs’ Aram Noroanyan with 4:48 remaining in the first quarter.

However, the Wildcats came right back, as they knotted the score at 1 on a deflection by Brett Santos.

Unfortunately for the visitors, that would be the closest Monrovia would come to making it a game.

The Indians went in front for good at the 3:30 mark of the first on a goal by Daniel Silva, cashing in on another man-advantage situation. Noroanyan tacked on another goal with 29 seconds remaining to stake the Indians to a 3-1 lead after one quarter.

Silva played well on defense in the first, collecting three of his four steals in the stanza.

“Defense is definitely No. 1 for us. Defense always comes before offense for us,” Silva said. “We just want to play tight defense and not give them any room. We know that we can win if we play good defense.”

Monrovia was limited to just two shots in the first quarter.

Noroanyan and Silva led the Burroughs offensive charge with four goals each. Oscar Hernandez and Bryant Martinez added two goals each and Jeremy Trejo chipped in one.

Monrovia was able to convert just one of its seven shots in the second quarter, and as a result, Burroughs went into halftime with a 6-2 advantage.

Things got worse for the Wildcats in the third quarter, as they came out and missed their first seven shots. Again, Burroughs was able to take advantage, tallying three more goals and heading into the final quarter with a comfortable 9-3 lead.

“We got plenty of [man-advantages] today and we were able to convert on a lot of them,” Singhanate said. “I couldn’t be happier with how we played in that respect.”

The Indians kept up the pressure in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Wildcats, 4-1.

Dillon Wiegand and Adrian Sosa shared time in goal for Burroughs, as the two alternated quarters in sharing the win.