Burroughs Track Sweeps Burbank in All Four Divisions

Burroughs track and field beat Burbank in all four divisions Thursday, April 16, at Memorial Field, sweeping the crosstown dual meet by margins that ranged from close to blowout depending on which heat you watched.

The boys varsity score wasn’t close: Burroughs 95, Burbank 41. The girls varsity came down to four points, with Burroughs holding on 69-65. In the frosh-soph divisions, the gaps widened fast. Burroughs took the boys competition 106-28 and the girls 78-49. Four meets, four wins.

It’s the 400 meters where the afternoon got interesting.

Both the boys and girls varsity 400 races pulled the most attention from coaches and fans at Memorial Field, and the performances came from two Burroughs sophomores who don’t look anything like finished products yet. That’s what made Thursday worth talking about in the first place.

Avery Koenig won the boys 400 in 50.69 seconds. For a sophomore, that’s a legitimate time. For a sophomore who wasn’t running track at all last year, it’s striking. Koenig spent his freshman year as a soccer player and didn’t compete on a track until this spring. No background in the event, no years of base-building through middle school cross country or youth club programs.

So how’d he end up running the 400 for Burroughs?

“I switched this season because my friends asked me to join,” Koenig said.

That’s the whole story. Friends asked, Koenig showed up, and now he’s one of the more interesting 400-meter prospects in The San Fernando Valley. His 50.69 on Thursday wasn’t even his sharpest run this season. One week before the Burbank dual, Koenig ran a personal record of 49.34 at the Tiger Invitational in South Pasadena. Two weeks into competitive track and the kid’s already posting times that would qualify him for consideration at the CIF level.

The girls 400 didn’t disappoint either. Sophomore Elisha Hill won her race in 1:00.47, which gave Burroughs both sprint titles on the same afternoon. Hill’s performance held weight in a girls varsity meet that stayed tight throughout. Burroughs won 69-65, and a swing in two or three events could have changed that outcome for Burbank entirely.

Coaching 400-meter runners isn’t a short-term project. The event requires raw speed at the start, but it also demands a threshold development that doesn’t come quickly. Koenig and Hill are sophomores with two more high school seasons ahead. If Koenig can reproduce something close to that 49.34 mark from South Pasadena on a regular basis, programs beyond Burroughs’ league schedule will notice. He won’t stay under the radar long at that pace.

MyBurbank’s full coverage of the meet through Speeding Bullet Timing breaks down the full results across every event, and the depth of Burroughs’ advantage shows up clearly in the field events and distance races as well. The frosh-soph numbers tell a longer story than the varsity scores alone. A 106-28 boys margin at the frosh-soph level means Burroughs isn’t just winning on the varsity line. They’re stacking talent two classes deep.

For Burbank, it’s a hard Thursday to process. The girls varsity squad came within range of pulling off an upset, and the final 69-65 score reflects a competitive meet more than the frosh-soph results do. The boys varsity deficit of 54 points is a different situation. That gap doesn’t close overnight.

The California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section won’t weigh in on dual meet results directly, but times like Koenig’s 49.34 and Hill’s 1:00.47 feed into the sectional rankings that matter when postseason qualifying rounds arrive. CIF Southern Section’s official site tracks the qualifying standards, and both sophomores are already inside relevant range with months left in the season. Scheduling and entries are posted through the NFHS Network’s posted schedule for fans who want to track Burroughs’ remaining meets.

Koenig ran his first competitive 400 this spring because his friends wanted company. He’s now got a personal record of 49.34 and a dual meet win over Burbank on the same short resume.