Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball team completes season sweep of Burbank
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LA CRESCENTA — Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball Coach Jason Perez wasn’t too pleased with the effort his team put in during the first half of Monday’s Pacific League home game against Burbank.
Some tweaks on both ends of the court in the second half left Perez in a better mood.
“We were stagnant on offense and we stood around at times defensively,” said Perez, whose team would go on to earn a 41-34 victory against Burbank. “We were able to fix those things at halftime and carry them out the rest of the way.
“We had more structure in our game at both ends and we got some strong defensive efforts from Sammy Lamb, Haila Kekahuna and Mya Johnson against Burbank’s top players.”
Crescenta Valley (15-7, 8-2 in league) limited Burbank (14-10, 5-5) to just 14 second-half points and finished off the two-game season series sweep. The Bulldogs held a 20-18 halftime lead before sputtering on offense in the second half.
Crescenta Valley got 12 points and eight rebounds from Alisa Shinn, 10 points from Liana Esmaili and nine rebounds and four assists from Josie Brock to thwart Burbank.
Burbank received 11 points, nine rebounds and four steals from Yazzy Sa’dullah, who shared the league’s most valuable player accolade last season. Anastasia Tsybaeva recorded 10 points and a game-high seven blocks for the Bulldogs. However, Lamb, Kekahuna and Johnson took turns defending against Sa’dullah, limiting her outside shots. Sa’dullah finished with eight second-half points.
Shinn said the Falcons did a better job at operating in the second half.
“We’re basically a second-half team, so we knew exactly what we needed to do,” Shinn said. “We were able to make some changes and we regrouped.”
Burbank closed to within 34-30 on a three-pointer by Christina Mkrtchyan with 5:55 remaining in the fourth quarter. Shinn then scored on a layup to give Crescenta Valley a 37-32 lead with 3:10 to go. A layup by Polin Megerdichian extended Crescenta Valley’s advantage to 39-32 with 2:51 remaining.
Burbank Coach Bruce Breeden said the Bulldogs couldn’t get on track in the second half.
“We struggled and we just couldn’t make shots,” Breeden said. “We gave up too many points in the third quarter and we got lazy defensively.”
