A better and more efficient start would have been preferred by the Burroughs High girls’ water polo team when it faced host Burbank.
With 5:40 left in the second quarter of Tuesday’s Pacific League match, it was tied after the Bulldogs scored, but the Indians then rattled off four consecutive tallies that included an 8-1 run and collected a 12-5 victory.
“We made some adjustments here and there,” Burroughs coach Jacob Cook said. “We shut them down from there. It was a good game overall today.”
Burroughs (6-4 and 2-1 in league) held Burbank (4-7 and 0-3 in league) to one goal in the third quarter and none in the fourth period.
With 4:10 on the clock in the second period, Burroughs senior utility Gwendolyn Turla scored on an eight-footer that made it 5-4 and with 3:29 remaining the lead swelled to 6-4 on a goal by junior utility Aleah Orozco from close range.
“I think we came in a little bit, maybe overconfident,” Orozco said, “and then we came to the realization that Burbank is a tough team and we need to get it together in order to play against our rival school and I think once that happened and we got in the right mental state, then things started to go our way.”
Orozco said she noticed early that the Bulldogs were aggressive. “I feel like in any type of sport, once it becomes more intense, you try to be more aggressive and they became a lot more aggressive,” she noted, “but we became back equally aggressive.”
The Indians’ lead became 7-4 when Turla scored on a five-footer and with nine seconds left before halftime, a 25-foot floater from senior attacker Cameron Flores pushed the margin to 8-4.
A goal from 10 feet by Burbank senior utility Lexi Lyneis evened it at 4-4 in the second quarter.
Lyneis collected her initial goal with 1:59 left in the first quarter on a 20-footer that tied it at 3-3.
“We just made a few mistakes that they capitalized on,” Burbank coach Allyson Young said. “We were making mistakes and too close together and they were making the steals.”
It took a while before a goal was scored in the third quarter as Turla found the back of the net on an eight-foot penalty shot that made it 9-4 as 3:19 remained.
With 1:15 left in the same frame it became 10-4 on a five-footer by senior setter Bianca Sanchez, but Burbank, which committed 19 turnovers, sliced it to 10-5 on senior driver Sune Aghakian’s 10-footer with 1:01 left.
In the fourth period it was all Burroughs which pulled ahead 11-5 with 3:52 left on a tally from three-feet by junior attacker Samantha Leano.
Thirty-eight seconds later a goal from five-feet by Sanchez shoved the Indians ahead 12-5.
The Bulldogs marched in front 1-0 on junior utility Patil Minassian’s three-footer with 5:58 showing, but twenty seconds later it was deadlocked at 1-1 on Turla’s 10-footer.
Sanchez’s short-range rocket with 4:56 left made it 2-1, however, the Bulldogs evened it at 2-2 on junior driver Michelle Morlock’s point-blank bullet and 4:06 on the clock.
Turla’s nine-footer with 2:12 left gave the Indians a 3-2 edge and Sanchez’s eight-footer with 1:05 on the ticker capped the period as the Indians led 4-3 heading into the second period.
Burbank junior goalie Suzie Misiryan and Burroughs’ junior goalie Isabella Erickson and sophomore net keeper Emmanuella Nathan all played well.
