Forty-five seconds into the match, Matt Peters scored to ignite the Falcons’ overwhelming run. Beginning at the 5:34 mark, Crescenta Valley strung together four more goals in the span of a minute.
Alan Dearman muscled his way in for a short goal to make it 2-0, then Veselich drove down the middle, dishing to Peters on the left wing for the Falcons’ third goal.
A steal by goalkeeper Rane Colvin sparked a Peters goal on the counter-attack before another steal, this one in the middle of a Burbank 6-5 advantage, led to a Veselich goal and a 5-0 lead.
“They’re very physical and they press and they counter-attack, they’ve been doing that for a long time,” said Burbank Coach Carlos Pelayo, a Crescenta Valley graduate. “We just weren’t ready to match their intensity yet. The big thing we’re trying to work on is consistency.”
The Falcons (7-7) closed out the quarter with two more tallies from Veselich and one apiece from Peters, Dearman and Andrew De Jong.
Burbank (4-7) got on the board at the 3:39 mark of the second quarter on a long straight shot by Zachary Card and shut the Falcons out in the quarter while getting its second goal of the match from Samuel Akopian with 37 seconds left in the half.
But Crescenta Valley guarded well against any Bulldogs second-half comeback attempt behind good defense and two goals apiece from Jordan Adajar and Spencer Duke and one from Shiraz Arslanian.
“They played well and they need experience,” Crescenta Valley Coach Jan Sakonju said of his second unit. “Doing things in practice versus an actual game is completely different, so that gets them some needed playing time so they can develop their roles as we move into playoffs.”
Akopian scored two more goals in the second half for Burbank, which also got goals from Dimitar Tantchev and Nicholas Vitagliano.
