Perhaps the restructuring of the Burbank High boys’ soccer team won’t take long to complete.
The way things have gone early in the season, the Bulldogs might even be slightly ahead of schedule.
Backed by two goals and one assist from George Atallah, Burbank cruised to a 4-1 nonleague home victory against Schurr on Monday.
The Bulldogs (2-0-1) have looked sharp after previously competing in nonleague matches against Beverly Hills and Hart, giving first-year coach Johnny Rotunno reason for optimism moving ahead.
“We’ve been making the right moves and they have been playing consistently,” Rotunno said. “Those are two big things and we have some new guys on board who are getting more experience.
“I’m glad that we are scoring goals and getting a lot of balls to the goal. We’ve done a good job early on here.”
Burbank finished 9-8-3, 5-6-3 in the Pacific League for fifth place and didn’t qualify for the CIF playoffs last season.
Burbank would like a top-four finish in league this season, which would guarantee an automatic spot in the playoffs.
Burbank led throughout Monday’s match, jumping out to a 3-0 halftime advantage against the Spartans (3-1).
Grigor Parian, the lone freshman on the squad, opened the scoring in the 15th minute. Atallah took a direct kick that was stopped by Schurr goalkeeper Zander Osorio, but Parian scored off the rebound to make it 1-0.
Burbank extended the lead to 2-0 when Atallah took a short pass from David Agababian and beat Osorio with a shot inside the far right post in the 26th minute.
Erik Antanesyan made it 3-0 with about five minutes remaining in the first half.
The Bulldogs took a 4-0 lead on a goal by Atallah off an assist from Samvel Avetisyan in the 47th minute.
Atallah said the Bulldogs have meshed during the first week of the season.
“We have a lot of strong points to our team,” Atallah said. “We also still have a lot of things to work on, but we have a lot of trust in each other that we can do our jobs and do it well.
“We’ve gotten off to a good start and we want to try to stay undefeated heading into league. I’m trying to be a play-maker and try to create chances for our team.”
Schurr, which took second in the Almont League last season, closed out the scoring on a goal by Juan Cervantes with nearly three minutes remaining.
Burbank goalkeeper Hayk Tovmasyan finished with seven saves.
