The Burbank High football team has shown many teams that season that it can overcome its mistakes.
Friday night things were a little different as the Bulldogs faced arguably the toughest team they have faced all season in Crescenta Valley.
With essentially the Pacific League title on the line, the Bulldogs fell short of their preseason goal of winning league in a 35-21 loss to the visiting Falcons at Memorial Field.
“You can’t give the ball away. It is pretty simple. That was the difference,” Burbank coach Richard Broussard said. “They (CV coaches) called a helluva game. They beat us. The better team won. You can’t expect to win a championship if you give the ball up.”
Burbank (6-3, 5-1 in league) was looking solid until midway through the first quarter when a bad snap on a punt was recovered in the red zone by the Falcons.
CV (8-1, 6-0) capitalized on that miscue to take a 14-7 lead.
Burbank was fortunate that CV actually narrowly missed two field goal attempts.
The Bulldogs tied things up at 21 with 39 seconds left in the third quarter as Andy Reyes blocked a CV punt and Miguel Vasquez recovered the loose ball in the end zone for a touchdown. Quarterback Guy Gibbs and Jake Kelley then hooked up on a successful two-point conversion, giving Burbank momentum going into the final quarter.
But CV multi-purpose star Brandon Beardt brought his team back, scoring on runs of 3 and 7 yards in the fourth quarter.
Burbank actually took the early lead as Nick Warren scored on a two-yard run at the 10:47 mark of the first quarter.
CV tied things up when sophomore quarterback Cole Doyle scored on a one-yard keeper with 7:17 left in the first quarter.
The Falcons took the lead when Doyle hooked up with Beardt on 14-yard touchdown.
Burbank made things interesting at the 7:26 mark of the third quarter when Warren scored on a 1-yard run. But the Bulldogs missed the extra-point attempt, making it 14-13.
CV quickly responded with a trick play that resulted in another touchdown as Andrew Traber scored on a 74-yard pass from Will Rees, who received the ball from Doyle.
“We’re going to go and look at the film tomorrow and see what we did wrong and what we could have done better,” Burbank quarterback Guy Gibbs said. “We have to move forward from this loss and look forward to next week.”
Gibbs finished 10 of 27 for 170 yards passing with one interception.
Warren had 70 yards and a pair of touchdowns in 19 carries.
Burbank closes out the regular season next Friday against rival Burroughs at Memorial Field.
