Burroughs and West Ranch highs have one thing in common in that they have dominated their respective leagues in recent years.
The Bears have won 12 consecutive Pacific League titles, whereas the Wildcats have won six straight in the Foothill League and had their 64 match league unbeaten streak snapped the night before by Saugus.
Friday night the two met and Burroughs left little doubt as to which was the better team, winning 25-8, 25-13, 25-14.
The win was also nice for Burroughs, which has also been affected by the recent storms that swept through Southern California.
“We have not been able to practice in here for over a week,” Burroughs coach Joel Brinton said about the rain that caused leaks in many places in the school’s main gymnasium. “After not a good Redondo tournament, it was a long week for us. It was nice to see us implement what we practiced all week. We’re finding ourselves right now. We have a lot of youth out there.”
Burroughs (3-6), which has been practicing in the Brian Hurst gym, its older gym on campus, started out on a roll and never faced any serious threat from West Ranch.
Sophomore Benji Ly had a kill on the very first point of the match. He went on to finish the match with 12 kills.
Fellow sophomore Ryder Tafoya put the nail in the coffin on the first game as he recorded a kill to give Burroughs its 25th point.
Burroughs never trailed in the second game. A kill by Mark Hopkins sent the match to a third and final game.
West Ranch (4-7) actually led 9-8, before Burroughs took advantage of a number of Wildcat errors.
Carlos Tupua-Stiefel served up a pair of aces to push the advantage to 17-10, which forced West Ranch to call a time out.
But not much changed. A block by Hopkins closed out the match.
Burroughs received 7 kills from junior Henry Carlin. Christian Lim finished with 22 assists. Ly also had 11 digs and Carlin had three aces.
Burroughs will host St. Francis on Thursday in another nonleague contest that should be a formidable challenge.
