CV holds off the Dogs for narrow league victory

GLENDALE — With a double-overtime nail biter already in the books between the two teams this season, the boys’ basketball teams from Crescenta Valley High and Burbank continued their running battle down to the last shot once again on Friday night in a 62-58 Pacific League win for the Falcons at Burbank.

Dylan Kilgour led the Falcons with 20 points, including a pair of free throws in the final seconds to ice the game and complete the two-game regular-season series sweep of the Bulldogs.

“We didn’t go into the game looking at Burbank’s record,” Crescenta Valley Coach Shawn Zargarian said of the Bulldogs, who have now lost four of their last five league contests. “We went into the game saying, ‘Hey, we’re playing Burbank and we know games against Burbank, at home, on the road, are always heated and always close and that’s exactly what it was.”

The fourth quarter began with both teams deadlocked and stayed tight until the final minutes when Crescenta Valley (17-6, 9-1 in league), which is ranked seventh in CIF Southern Section Division 1-A, was able to pull away by five points near the 2:00 mark.

Some Falcons turnovers down the stretch left the door open for the Bulldogs (13-10, 4-6) and Austin Pope, who had a good look at a game-tying three with 14 seconds left, but couldn’t connect.

With Burbank forced to foul intentionally the rest of the way, Cole Currie (16 points) made one out of two from the line to give the Falcons a four-point lead, which was promptly cut in half at the other end. But with only four seconds on the clock, the Bulldogs were out of chances when Kilgour sank a pair of foul shots to bring the margin back up to four.

Kilgour, who made four three-pointers and made all eight of his free-throw attempts, came up big early in the third quarter, as well. Trailing the Bulldogs by three to begin the second half, Crescenta Valley faced a zone defense, but not for long.

Kilgour hit back-to-back threes from the corner and Nick Kelly connected from long range, as well, early in the period to force the Bulldogs back into man-to-man defense.

“That kind of got them out of their zone and then we went back to trying to attack around the basket and get some stuff around the rim,” said Zargarian, who got nine points and 13 rebounds from Davis Dragovich.

Falcons center Christian Misi was held to just four points.

“The did a good job [on Misi],” Zargarian said. “They had Adam Colman on him, who’s a big and strong body, but Christian did a good job of not forcing shots, he stayed within the offense, rebounded the ball and, on the flipside, did a great job of defending Colman.”