For the first three quarters of its CIF Southern Section Division 2A quarterfinal girls’ basketball playoff game, Burroughs High played as close to perfect as one could expect.
Things got a little scary in the fourth quarter as depth issues came in to play. But the top-seeded Bears were able to secure another berth in the semifinals with a 58-48 win over host Pioneer High of Whittier.
Burroughs (22-9) will now host Rolling Hills Prep (20-8) in the semifinals on Saturday.
The Bears did give up the first two baskets to fall into a 5-0 slump to start the game. But from then on it was all Burroughs, as its man-to-man defensive pressure gave the host Titans difficulty in getting shots off.
“We were composed. I would say that our defense was one of the best I’ve seen. We’re usually a trapping team. Today we played man defense and just locked them down,” said Burroughs coach Vicky Oganyan, who will be bringing her fifth team to the CIF semifinals in 21 seasons.
Pioneer (17-13) had the shot clock expire three times in the first quarter.
Burroughs went on an 11-0 run and led 18-11 at the end of the first quarter.
The Titans also attempted to put pressure on Burroughs, but often found themselves being caught behind as Burroughs center Valentina Morales was able to create a mismatch by passing the ball to Elizabeth Amoroso and Mariam Fahs often led to fastbreaks and opportunities for Grace Barton and Jessica Mena to take long-distance shots.
“We knew they were going to pressure us. We worked on it. We talked about people coming back to the ball. I thought Val did a great job always been there for our guards,” Oganyan said. “With Mariam fouling out it made it a little tougher. It was nice to have a 20-point cushion to work with. We did enough good stuff to be able to handle their pressure at the end without one of our top ball handlers in the game.”
Burroughs went on to lead 28-17 at halftime and started the second half with a three-pointer from Amoroso.
The Bears went on to lead 51-28 at the end of the third quarter thanks to Fahs, who scored nine of her 16 points in the quarter. Barton also finished with 16 points.
Fahs was whistled for her fifth foul with 3:35 to play even though she didn’t touch anyone on an attempt to shoot a short-range basket.
Pioneer got as close as 56-48 with 1:41 to play.
Morales and Mena each had 10 points and Amoroso had five. Freshman Isabella Amayakyan, who had several key loose ball rebounds late in the game, finished with one point.
Daycia Almendarez had 15 points to lead Pioneer.
