Burroughs girls’ soccer powers past Glendale
GLENDALE — Get the Burroughs High and Glendale girls’ soccer teams together and there’s bound to be plenty of goals scored.
Even if the teams might be a bit rusty from a lack of recent activity because of the holiday break.
Burroughs and Glendale met Friday in their second Pacific League match of the season and goals weren’t hard to come by.
Lily Gonzalez scored two of Burroughs five second-half goals to lift Burroughs to a 7-3 road victory against host Glendale.
Burroughs (7-2-2, 4-0-1 in league) and Glendale (3-3-3, 2-3-1) combined for 19 goals in the two head-to-head meetings this season. Burroughs posted a 7-2 win in the first contest Dec. 7 at Burroughs.
Entering Friday’s match, Burroughs hadn’t played since Dec. 15 and Glendale last competed Dec. 21.
“That’s definitely a lot of goals scored,” Burroughs coach Brady Riggs said. “For some reason, the goals tend to come in bunches. Glendale has some good players and are a tough team to play against.
“It’s our first game in 20 days and we were a little off, but give Glendale credit for playing hard. It’s nice that we can attack and score goals.”
Burroughs, which finished second in league last season behind Arcadia, got one goal apiece from Samantha Valencia and Emily McHorney to build a 2-0 lead.
Valencia scored on a 30-yard shot that eluded Glendale goalkeeper Arpa Aleksandr in the 15th minute before McHorney scored off a rebound in the 19th minute.
“We started off a little slow, but I thought we played a pretty good first half,” said Glendale coach Victor Aquino, who guided Glendale to a fourth-place finish last season and its first postseason appearance for the first time since 2004. “It’s tough when you give up two goals in four minutes.
“In the second half, it just seemed to go back and fourth. I think we’ll be fine and get ready to bounce back.”
Burroughs extended its lead to 3-0 on a goal by Gonzalez in the 50th minute. Gonzalez scored again about two minutes later to make it 4-0.
“The goals just seemed to come in this game and you just have to be confident with your shooting,” Gonzalez said. “We knew we needed to keep scoring to protect the lead.
“You’re always afraid when you are a little rusty from not playing much lately. We just knew that we had to keep at it.”
Glendale trimmed the deficit to 4-1 on a goal by Gisele Navarro that got past Burroughs goalkeeper Stephanie Martinez in the 55th minute.
The Indians responded about three minutes later on a goal by Lauryn Bailey to extend the lead to 5-1.
Navarro scored on a low shot inside the left post to bring the Nitros to within 5-2 in the 69th minute.
Alex Mills of Burroughs followed with a goal off a corner kick from Abbie Riggs to make it 6-2 in the 74th minute.
Taylor Puno scored in the 75th minute to pull the Nitros to within 6-3.
Burroughs capped the scoring with 30 seconds remaining on a goal by Megan Schmidt.
Burroughs and Glendale will take part in league matches Tuesday. Burroughs will be at Arcadia and Glendale will face visiting Crescenta Valley.
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
