By Rick Assad
All things considered, the Burbank High boys’ basketball team kept pace with Arcadia for two of the four quarters on Friday night, and that’s the good news.
The second half wasn’t on par with the opening half as the Apaches seemingly scored at will as the Bulldogs fell 82-52 in a Pacific League game.
Arcadia’s second half saw the visitors outscore Burbank 47-22 after hitting 17 of 30 shots for 56.6 percent and led 35-30 at halftime.
Junior point guard Jon Ong led the Bulldogs in scoring with 16 points, senior point guard Cris Ong added 11 points and senior small forward Anthony Jawiche tossed in nine points.
Steve Eshleman, Burbank’s head coach, was realistic afterward.
“We played a solid first half at the pace we wanted,” he explained. “They are just so big and talented, and they got their fast break going and overwhelmed us in the second half.”
Arcadia has five players who are 6-foot-5 or taller and beside height its length is also a problem for many teams.
Eshleman was hoping his team would shoot better after making 21 of 49 for 42.8 percent which is decent.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well and that led to easy run-out baskets,” he said. “I’m proud of the effort our guys put forth, and we’ll learn from this game and move on.”
Burbank’s next contest is at Pasadena on Monday with a 6:45 p.m. start time.
Arcadia, which shot 54.5 percent on 30 of 55 from the field, was paced by senior wing, 6-7 Mateo Ingersoll, who scored a game-best 30 points with 19 points tallied in the second half.
Senior point guard/shooting guard, 6-4 Noa Eteuati-Edwards accounted for 16 points and junior shooting guard Alec Mazakiain contributed 12 points, all in the second half.
Behind sophomore point guard Nick Wallace Jr. making three from three-point range for all of his points and Ingersoll’s eight points, the Apaches (7-1 and 2-0 in league) led 18-17 heading to the second quarter. Ingersoll’s dunk with 3:49 left in the frame gave Arcadia a 9-6 edge.
The second period saw Eteuati-Edwards score 10 points as Arcadia bolted ahead 35-30 at the intermission as the visitors shot 52 percent on 13 of 25.
The Apaches held the Bulldogs (3-2 and 0-1 in league) to four points in the third quarter while scoring 22 points as Ingersoll had seven points and Eteuati-Edwards tallied six points.
Ingersoll’s hoop and 5:31 remaining in the period handed Arcadia a 42-32 advantage and were clearly on its way to a victory.
Burbank did better in the fourth period as it scored 18 points as sophomore wing Lucas Gordzholadze scored all of his six points, but Arcadia scored 24 points with Ingersoll contributing 11 points.
Senior small forward Giordan Lewis had four points and junior wing Kaleb Walker and senior wing Blake Finnigan both added three points for the Bulldogs.
Arcadia held a 33-20 rebound edge over Burbank and also made 15 of 22 from the free-throw line for 68.1 percent while the Bulldogs converted three of six for 50 percent from the charity stripe.
