By Rick Assad
In what will be viewed as a successful season for the Burroughs High girls’ water polo team ended in a CIF Southern Section Division III first-round playoff match on Thursday night.
Visiting Paloma Valley played swarming defense all evening and also scored just enough goals to emerge with a 7-6 victory.
The Bears (12-9 and 6-1 in the Pacific League for a first-place tie) had a couple of chances to score late in the match to even it but both times failed.
Both teams played terrific defense, and goals were hard to come by, but a few players stood out in that department.
The Wildcats led 2-1 after the first quarter, forged ahead 5-3 at halftime and dashed in front 7-5 after three periods and outshot the Bears 14-9 at the intermission but the Bears outshot the Wildcats 15-8 in the second half.
Martin Ortega Jennison is the Burroughs head coach and felt the Bears could have won the match.
“We made it a lot tougher than we should have. I thought we played great defensively but couldn’t pay it off by finishing and scoring the ball,” he said. “We had a couple opportunities later in the game to score with the goalie out, but we were frozen by the moment.”
Ortega Jennison added: “I think if we did a better job finishing, we could have come out on top and be able to complement our defense,” he stated. “The girls had a great season. They finished co-league champs and were tested and hopefully learned a lot this year.”
Derika Berenguer finished with a match-best four goals for Burroughs and Charlotte Stewart tallied a team-high three goals for the Wildcats who won despite not scoring in the fourth quarter.
Berenguer scored the Bears’ only goal in the opening period on a five-meter penalty shot at 3:02 that evened it at 1-1.
Berenguer scored twice in the second period including two close-range tallies with 1:25 left that cut the Paloma Valley lead to 5-2 and with sixteen seconds left that sliced the lead to 5-3.
A tally from Berenguer at seven yards and 5:15 remaining on the clock trimmed the deficit to 7-6 and this would be the last goal of the match.
Leah Hess added a 25-yard toss with 4:58 left in the third quarter that found the back of the net for Burroughs who drew within 5-4.
Bella Matossian unloaded a 23-yarder with 3:31 left on the clock that saw the Bears get within 7-5 in the same period.
Maya Lawrence started it off for the Wildcats (20-8 and 5-3 for third place in the Ivy League) with a 10-yard attempt and 6:28 left in the opening frame for a 1-0 lead and Danica Munoz had a long 27-yard throw with 1:02 left for a 2-1 margin.
In the second period, Stewart started to warm up as she had a 10-yarder with 6:43 left for a 3-1 advantage and then added a five-yarder and 3:46 on the ticker for a 5-1 cushion.
Paloma Valley’s Kaylee Gutierrez also found the back of the net from 16 yards and 6:13 left on the clock in the second period for a 4-1 lead.
The Wildcats saw Stewart score on a 12-yarder with 4:41 left that made it 6-4 and Sienna Pospisil contributed a goal from five yards as 3:58 remained for a 7-4 lead in the third stanza.
