By Rick Assad
For the first half, the Burbank High girls’ basketball team was able to stand toe-to-toe with visiting Arcadia.
This wasn’t the case in the second half as the Apaches outscored the Bulldogs 28-10 and emerged with a 46-27 Pacific League triumph on Tuesday night.
Senior shooting guard Bri Castro nailed a three-pointer and a hoop in the first quarter and then tallied another three-point shot in the second quarter.
But midway through that frame, Castro reinjured her right ankle and was assisted off the floor and had an ice bag placed on her injured ankle and didn’t return to the game.
“I’m okay,” said Castro of her turned ankle following the contest after scoring a team-best eight points.
Making matters even worse for Burbank, which shot 23.6 percent from the floor after making nine of 38, junior point guard Kim Pimentel hasn’t been in the lineup for an extended period of time after injuring her left knee and just recently had the brace removed.
Pimentel, who is a steadying influence on the court, did play briefly against Burroughs on Friday, but didn’t see any action against Arcadia.
“I need to know that they’re not afraid to be the one to make a mistake,” Burbank coach Jett Del Mundo said of his team that consists of five seniors, three juniors, four sophomores and one freshman. “They don’t want to be the one to take the shot. They don’t want to be the one to run the play. They want someone else to make the mistake so it’s not them. Part of that is maturity.”
Del Mundo added: “We also need to execute better,” he noted. “We’ll go five minutes at a time where we don’t do anything. We’ll just settle for whatever the other team gives us.”
The Apaches (9-9 and 4-3 in league) outscored the Bulldogs 14-9 in the opening period and led 18-17 at the intermission.
Burbank outscored Arcadia 8-4 in the second quarter and hammered in seven of 19 from the field for 36.8 percent in the opening half.
Burbank sophomore shooting guard Emily Mergerdichian has played very well lately and contributed five of her seven points in the second frame.
The Bulldogs (8-11 and 2-5 in league) missed all seven shots in the third period, but connected on all four free throws.
The Apaches, who hit 16 of 51 shots for 31.3 percent on the evening, were successful on four of 11 from the field in the third quarter and drilled all six from the charity stripe to pull ahead 33-21.
Burbank sank two of 12 from the floor in the fourth quarter for 10.5 percent and was successful on two of six from the free-throw line as sophomore point guard Alle Tarvirdi, who has also played well recently, tallied all of her five points in the period.
Arcadia made 33.3 percent of its field goals (nine of 27) in the second half and all nine of its free throws.
Senior small forward Naomi Turner led the way for the Apaches with a game-high 13 points including seven in the fourth period.
Senior small forward Merci Turner added 10 points for Arcadia as she scored eight points in the second half that included six in the third period.
Senior center Kennedy Lyles contributed eight points after scoring two points in all four quarters.
Senior center Adelina Bandarian, senior power forward Khyla Lipscomb and senior center Adriana Cabrera all scored two points for the Bulldogs and freshman power forward Karen Casillas tacked on one point.
