By Rick Assad
Summer high school basketball games are designed for a team to work out the kinks and get ready for the regular season which is several months away.
On Friday in the Burroughs-Burbank Summer Hoops Tournament, the host Bears faced Mira Costa and after a slow beginning, picked up some steam in the second half but still lost 48-30 in a Gold Division game.
“For us every game is like a learning opportunity, so that’s all we look at it as,” Burroughs coach Vicky Oganyan said. “The good things that we do, we try to emphasize and learn and to learn from our mistakes. They’re trying to learn the system, so it takes them a while. They’re trying.”
Even though it’s early, Oganyan knows that the team is going to get better.
“It’s a slow improvement. Each game you see individually certain girls do something or as a team collectively do something,” she said. “They all have their moments. Individually here and there, but it’s getting to be more consistent and then getting it to click as a whole.”
One player reached double figures for Burroughs and that was point guard Malia Harney who tallied 11 points that included a pair of three-pointers.
Senior guard Rachel Little and junior forward Natalie Sanchez both accounted for four points while sophomore guard Skylar Cafferty, sophomore guard/forward Mariam Fahs and Valentina Morales each poured in three points. Mia Paz tallied two points.
Mira Costa came out cooking as it converted five of its first seven field goal attempts and after five straight misses, hammered three of four shots and led 19-12 with 10:10 left in the opening half.
During this stretch, senior shooting guard/point guard Maile Nakaji, who finished with 13 points, nailed three three-pointers and had 11 points at the intermission.
The Mustangs capped the opening half by canning three straight that included a hoop from junior small forward JuJu O’Brien who totaled 11 points.
The Bears, who connected on 12 of 27 from the field for 44.4 percent, began with Cafferty nailing a three-pointer and Little adding a hoop.
A miss followed for Burroughs and three consecutive hoops were converted by Harney that included a trey.
Four failures were next as the first half concluded as the Bears converted five of 10 shots from the floor and trailed 33-13.
Over the last 20-minute half the Bears took 17 shots and made seven (41.1 percent) as six players scored.
Harney canned her second three-pointer and Sanchez tossed in two baskets for four points.
Mira Costa made six of 24 for 25 percent from the field in the second half and saw seven players score.
Mira Costa failed on its first shot but then hit two straight. Five misses followed but two straight buckets were made by Nakaji.
The rest of the half saw the Mustangs (19 of 47 for 40.4 percent) make two of its last 14 attempts.
