Penalties and turnovers are supposed to be the difference-makers in football games.
The Burbank High football team has a history of piling up penalty flags.
Friday night against Arcadia High it was no different, except that Burbank was solid in every other facet of the game and ran away with a 46-10 win over the visiting Apaches at Memorial Field.
“Being a young team, we have some things we need to tweak. We’re probably going to huddle a little more, give the line a little more time to talk. We’re not getting everyone set and I think we had a lot of offsides penalties today,” Burbank coach Hector Valencia said.
Burbank (3-2 overall, 1-1 in league) was penalized 16 times for 131 yards. The Bulldogs did not have any turnovers.
Once again the sophomore due of quarterback Deshawn Laporte and receiver Tyler Hudson caused problems for the Apaches.
Laporte completed 14 of 21 passes for 244 yards and three touchdowns. Hudson had eight receptions for 168 yards.
Burbank opened the scoring at the 9:48 mark of the first quarter when Joseph Caballero scored on an 18-yard run.
Arcadia (1-4, 0-2) got on the board when Johnny Gomez hit a 25-yard field goal on the second play of the second quarter.
Burbank responded quickly to the field goal as Elijah Pendleton had a 49-yard run that helped set up a 30-yard pass from Laporte to Daniel Zacariaz.
Laporte scored a touchdown of his own, running in from 8 yards out with 6:17 left in the first half. That made it 20-3. Max Kelley had a 2 yard run with 2:00 left in the half to push the advantage to 26-3.
Laporte and Hudson hooked up on a 28-yard touchdown with 7:43 left in the third quarter, making it 32-3.
Arcadia got a 6-yard touchdown pass by quarterback Jacobi Law to Ethan Long at the 4:17 mark of the third quarter.
Burbank answered back as Laporte hooked up with Exodus Freeman on a 20-yard touchdown just before the end of the quarter.
Caballero scored on a 35-yard run with 4:41 left in the fourth quarter to cap off the Bulldogs’ scoring.
“We had a hard fought week in practice and put all that work into this game,” Laporte said.
Burbank will play at Pasadena High next Thursday.
