THE YEAR IN REVIEW BURBANK HIGH:Tennis team leads the way

: This is the second in a four-part series looking back on the sports accomplishments of the four local high schools over the past school year. This installment is Burbank High.

The Burbank High sports teams ventured through the first two-thirds of the 2006-07 school year without claiming a league championship.

Despite moving from the treacherous Foothill League to the more manageable Pacific League, no Bulldogs squads were able to win a crown through the spring and winter seasons — although a few did come close.

That changed during the spring season.

Led by a solid singles lineup and a successful No. 1 doubles team, the Burbank boys’ tennis squad captured the first Pacific League title in school history.

The Paul McNiff-coached team also advanced to the CIF Southern Section Division II quarterfinals and lost just one match all season.

With outstanding athletes and accomplished squads, many Burbank teams were able to thrive and be successful. The school also enjoyed its share of fine accomplishments throughout the school year.

Here is a closer look at some of those accomplishments:

FALL SEASON

It was apparent that when the Bulldogs football team began the season with a 56-7 nonleague rout of Golden Valley, Burbank was in for a successful season.

The Bulldogs went 6-5 and finished third in the league with a 5-2 mark. The team could have easily tied for second, but it lost to Muir, 28-27, in double overtime.

There was no doubt who was the offensive catalyst for the Bulldogs. Senior Robert Linda passed, ran and kicked his way to success. Linda, who played quarterback, receiver, linebacker, defensive back, as well as place-kicker, passed for 803 yards and eight touchdowns and he ran for 591 yards and 15 touchdowns.

Along with being named the league’s offensive player of the year, Linda was honored as an All-CIF Southern Section Central Division selection as a linebacker, tallying 64 tackles and two interceptions.

Cross-country was another sport in which the Bulldogs shined. In Pacific League competition, the girls’ team placed second and the boys were fourth, as both qualified for CIF Southern Section preliminaries.

While Ryan Williams was the leader on a young boys’ team, the girls had a fine group led by Kristina Amela, Michelle Horgan, Kiran Jolly, Natalie Horgan, Natasha Christoffersen and Jennifer Velasquez.

Paced by Greg Fields, Hunter Pitkin and Sarkis Zargaryan, the Bulldogs (18-7) boys’ water polo team finished second during the league season and was third in the league tournament.

Under Coach Dro Hovanessian, the team won its first postseason match and fell in the second round of the playoffs to Beverly Hills, 14-13.

WINTER SEASON

It looked as if the Burbank girls’ water polo team was going to be the first squad at the school to win that elusive Pacific League title.

Paced by senior goalkeeper LaChee Singleton, the Bulldogs rolled through head-to-head league action undefeated. However, the team hit a snag in the league tournament and finished second.

Burbank (21-9), which qualified for the postseason for the first time in school history, added to its accomplishments by defeating Westridge, 13-3, for the program’s first playoff victory.

The team played well in the second round and lost to No. 5-seeded Harvard-Westlake, 11-8.

Coached by Carlos Pelayo, Burbank also had a fine player in senior driver Ani Shirinian, who had 54 goals, 45 steals and 25 assists.

The biggest individual season accomplishment during the winter was turned in by sophomore girls’ soccer player Amela, who added to her cross-country success.

Amela proved to be a scoring machine, tallying a school-record 32 goals.

She helped the Bulldogs (13-2-5) make the postseason for the first time in team history. Unfortunately, they fell in the first round to Walnut, 3-1.

Also adding to his fall exploits was Linda, who found success as a forward on the Bulldogs boys’ basketball team. The first-team All-Area and all-league selection averaged 14.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.1 steals.

Burbank (13-15) made the playoffs as a wild-card entry and won its opener, 52-47, against Montclair. In the second round, however, the Bulldogs fell to No. 2 Bishop Montgomery.

SPRING SEASON

McNiff, who headed the boys’ tennis program for four years, decided to step down at the conclusion of the season.

He definitely went out on top, as his Bulldogs captured its first outright league title since 2001, when it was a member of the Foothill League.

Paced by singles players Garn Sangsuriyakul, Pete Sangsuriyakul and Arthur Karagezian and the doubles team of Leo Kim and Tigran Yeremyan, Burbank went 17-1. Its only loss came to Webb, 10-8, in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division II playoffs.

It was the program’s first trip to the quarterfinals since 2003.

The team that likely made the biggest turnaround during the spring was the baseball squad. Under the direction of Coach Bob Hart, Burbank (10-13, 7-7 in league) placed fourth in league and earned a spot in the postseason for the first time in 16 years.

Behind players like Eddie Urquiza, Ben Levitt, Chris Montgomery and Keith Hoefel, the Bulldogs were competitive, as they fell in a CIF Southern Section Division II wild-card game to Pioneer Valley, 5-1.

The Bulldogs softball team was also able to break a long-standing playoff drought, earning a berth in the CIF Southern Section Division III postseason for the first time since 1992.

The Bulldogs (15-11, 10-4) made an impact in their first season in the Pacific League, finishing behind co-champions Crescenta Valley and Arcadia.

Behind the arm of accomplished pitcher Kristen Peraza — a sophomore — Burbank won its wild-card game against Highland, 6-0. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs lost a first-round heartbreaker to Santa Monica, 1-0, in nine innings.

Peraza was overpowering in the circle, as the first-team all-league selection compiled a 14-7 record and had a 0.88 earned-run average with 245 strikeouts and 38 walks in 135 innings. She was even more impressive in league, boasting a 0.31 ERA with 142 strikeouts.

Following a 10-year drought at the CIF Southern Section Swimming and Diving Championships, Burbank High sent four boys to the Division II meet at Long Beach’s Belmont Plaza pool.

The Bulldogs 400-yard freestyle relay team of David Nelson, Marc Anunta, Greg Fields and Aram Simonian finished sixth in the eight-team field of the consolation heat with a time of 3 minutes, 18.54 seconds, after qualifying with a time of 3:19.13. Simonian, who clocked a 48.52 split on the last leg of the relay, also swam to fourth-place finish in the consolation heat of the 100 breaststroke in 53.56, cutting .20 seconds of his school-record qualifying time.

In boys’ track and field, individual league championships were won by Mehran Goorabian in the discus (128 feet 6), Dennis O’Dea in the tipple jump (43-9) and Jordan Sanders in the shot put (50-2 3/4 ).