Burroughs Swim Sweeps Burbank in Pacific League Dual Meet

Burroughs High swept all four squads in a Pacific League dual meet against city rival Burbank, with the Bears’ varsity boys delivering the most lopsided result: a 126-44 win over the Bulldogs.

The varsity girls followed with a 102-60 decision, and the junior varsity sides added to the rout. The JV boys beat Burbank 108-45, and the JV girls rolled to a 115-38 win. Four matches, four victories for the Bears, all in the same afternoon at the Burroughs pool.

Roy Yuzna put together one of the strongest individual performances of the day. He won the 50 freestyle outright, then came back to take the 100 breaststroke, and anchored the winning 200 medley relay squad alongside Logan Vescio, Liam Wamester, and Jack St. Pierre. Three events. Three firsts.

St. Pierre had a big meet of his own.

He won the 100 butterfly and collected relay legs in both the 200-freestyle medley and the 400-freestyle relay, which Burroughs swept from top to bottom with three separate lineups. In the 100 butterfly, the Bears didn’t just win, they took every spot on the podium, with Clyde Jordan second and Wamester third.

Matthew Rodriguez paced Burroughs in the 100 freestyle, with Lincoln Morrow right behind him in second and Lucas Spratt third. That kind of depth is what separates championship programs from everyone else, and the Bears showed it event after event. Esai Chatalyan led a Burroughs sweep of the 500 freestyle, with Landon Quiambao second and Owen Morris third.

Burbank didn’t fold. Lawrence Canestrelli won the 100 backstroke over Rodriguez, and Michael Bakrgyan took the 200 freestyle ahead of August Burkhardt. The Bulldogs’ 200 medley relay team of Canestrelli, Matthew Van Peteghan, Jack Babelyan, and Arman Yegshatov placed second. Yegshatov also finished second in the 50 freestyle. Those were real competitive moments inside a meet that went decisively Burroughs’ way.

Burbank head coach Nate Benton runs a program that’s clearly pushing through a rebuild, and he’s not hiding from where things stand or where they’re going. He’s focused on what’s working.

“We are very proud of our girls varsity for earning their first winning season they’ve had in some time,” Benton told reporters. “We are looking forward to finding a way to fill the holes left by the seniors who will graduate on that team at the end of this year.”

That’s a coach talking about his program honestly and with purpose. Benton knows the rivalry well enough to know a tough dual meet loss doesn’t define a season. The full meet report from MyBurbank.com shows just how tight some of those individual battles ran even in a lopsided team score. Results like Canestrelli’s backstroke win and Bakrgyan’s 200 freestyle don’t show up in a box score summary, but they tell you Burbank isn’t going away.

For the Bears, this meet confirms what Pacific League coaches have been watching build since the winter. The relay depth alone is remarkable. Burroughs fielded three competitive relay units in the 400 freestyle and still went one-two-three, with Yuzna, Wamester, Morrow, and St. Pierre winning, Rodriguez, Jordan, Menchaca, and Spratt placing second, and Chatalyan, Morris, Vescio, and Keller finishing third. You can’t manufacture that kind of roster width overnight.

The Chandler Bikeway runs less than two miles from the Burroughs campus, and on a spring afternoon when school’s out, the neighborhood around the pool fills with families and younger kids who watch meets like this one and decide they want to try swimming. These Pacific League matchups matter beyond the scoreboard for exactly that reason. They’re the most visible amateur competition in the city.

Burroughs is chasing a Pacific League title, and meets like this one show they have the firepower to make that run. Individual standouts like Yuzna and St. Pierre give the coaching staff options on any relay configuration, and that’s a luxury most programs in the league don’t have. The swim team page on the CIF Southern Section website tracks standings as the season moves toward May championship rounds, and Burroughs figures to be in that conversation.

Burbank’s girls varsity earning their first winning season in some time is real progress, even if Tuesday’s final score didn’t reflect it.