There were a lot of interesting unknowns between the Burroughs and Burbank girls’ soccer teams Friday.
For one, seeing who could play and who had to miss the match due of the rise of Covid-19 cases as a result of the Omicron variant.
Another interesting unknown was how Burroughs would look after having lost a number of key players to graduation.
It didn’t come easy, but Burroughs looked very strong late and earned a 7-1 road Pacific League victory.
“That is much more of what we are trying to do, which is exciting. The effort was really good. We have a pretty deep team this year in terms of people of like skill. We don’t have someone stepping out and dominating. In a way we are playing better as a team,” Burroughs coach Brady Riggs said.
Burroughs (4-1 in league) got on the board just two minutes into the match as Megan Schmidt scored on a pass from Julia Narmore.
Burbank, which was without three starters for various reasons, hung tough.
Burroughs didn’t score its second goal until the 35th minute when Graciela Gomez put home a cross by Nadia Aguilar to the back post.
Burbank got back a goal in the 52nd minute as Aleyna Doche put the ball into the right corner of Burroughs’ net.
Burroughs got its third goal in the 61st minute as Schmidt scored off a pass from Jailyn Turner and deflected off a Burbank defender.
Then things started to pen as Burbank scored four more times.
Narmore scored on a pass from Aguilar in the 66th minute. Not long after Samantha Valencia took a shot from well outside the box that unexpectedly found the back of the net.
Sofia Samuelson scored in the 68th minute on a quick pass from Aguilar.
Aguilar added a goal in the 72nd minute off a pass from Gomez.
“We were just glad to have a game today. We still have some things to work on, but in the second half we did much better. Burbank definitely put a fight up against us in the first half,” Narmore said.
Burbank coach Pablo Diaz was proud of how his team hung in there for as long as it did.
“We ran out of gas. We stayed in the game for 70 percent of the game and then they ran us off,” Diaz said.
