When it rains it pours and the Burroughs High girls’ soccer team certainly saw enough water on the Memorial Field pitch than it would have liked Tuesday when the Bears opened the CIF Southern Section Division 5 playoffs with a wild-card match against visiting Channel Islands.
After very difficult conditions and an overtime period in which the two teams remained deadlocked, the Bears fell 4-1 in penalty shootout after the match ended in a 1-1 tie.
“Only one team wins their last playoff game. It isn’t going to be us this year,” Burroughs coach Brady Riggs said. “We had a bunch of freshmen on the field all season long and we got good production and I look forward to seeing their growth moving forward.”
Channel Islands will move on to play Geffen Academy at UCLA on Thursday.
“We said before the game we are not going to talk about it,” Riggs said of the rain. “I think we dealt with it well. I don’t think it had any outcome on the game.”
The Raiders (7-7-1, 6-6 in league) scored its goal in the third minute as a left-footed shot by Joanna Reyna slipped past Burroughs goalie Jasmin Varela.
Burroughs (9-7-1, 9-5) was stunned by giving up an early goal. But it woke the Bears up.
The Bears tied things in the 19th minute when Jailyn Turner got the ball to Samantha Sizemore who took a left-footed shot to beat Channel Islands goalie Myranda Figueroa.
Burroughs nearly took the lead in the 44th minute as Graciela Gomez hit the top cross bar.
Quiana Laughlin also had a chance in the 60th minute as she tried to chip the ball over Figueroa, but her attempt went just a tad bit too high.
“They have forwards who are very quick and very good players. They were very good on the wings. We were lucky to get to penalty kicks,” Channel Islands coach Chava Orozco said in Spanish.
Burroughs nearly scored what could have been a game winner in the overtime period as Laughlin got past the last Channel Islands defender, who shoved her. Laughlin did not go to the ground, but she did lose her ability to fire on target.
In the shootout Channel Islands made all four of its opportunities. Figueroa came up big with stops on shots from Nadia Aguilar and Geneva Kiefer.
