"We hope a game like this will help us to that," Burroughs Coach Mike Kodama said. "We have some talented guys, but like other Burroughs teams, we seem to struggle in the early part of the season. But we also tend to be a better second-half team, and hopefully we will continue to get better."
Glendale (1-9-3. 0-3-2) and Coach Tulio Marroquin are probably hoping for the same kind of turnaround, despite fielding a young, inexperienced team this season. The coach has high hopes that his squad will be able to grow and become more competitive before the end of the season.
"We are just so young, and we have a lot of freshmen and sophomores playing right now," he said. "It's tough when you have a lot of young guys and you go against teams that have been playing together for two or three seasons.
"But the guys are really working hard and they are giving it everything that they can."
Burroughs came out and dominated play in the first half. The team's defense and midfield, spearheaded by Ozzie Castro, Kevin Garcia and Sergio Saenz, allowed the Nitros no shots on goal during the first 40 minutes. That made things easy for junior goalkeeper Elliott Whitecotton, who earned the shutout.
In contrast, Burroughs had 10 shots in the first half, with five coming from senior midfielder Francisco Baez
"I think we only had three or four shots on frame all game," Marroquin said. "You just can't win when you do that."
Baez got the Indians on board in the 16th minute when he scored following a pass in front of the Glendale goal by Govanni Medina.
Lass than a minute later, Baez put Burroughs in front, 2-0, with his second goal of the afternoon.
