Glendale girls’ water polo gets best of cross-town rival Hoover
GLENDALE — For Mondana Nassirpour, it’s all about being organized the day of a match.
The junior driver on the Glendale High girls’ water polo team considers organization to be the most important aspect in terms of trying to achieve success.
Nassirpour tallied a team-high seven goals Thursday to help visiting Glendale earn a 14-9 Pacific League win against cross-town rival Hoover.
“If the team isn’t organized, then I’m not organized,” said Nassirpour, who scored four goals in the first quarter to give Glendale a 6-2 lead. “When you get in the water, you have to be organized and always communicating because those two things give you a chance to do well.
“I try to stay back and let the seniors provide the leadership. Then I come in and make sure we’re organized and ready to go. We want to try to get a top-three spot in league and then go to CIF.”
Glendale (2-0 in league) received some quick offense from Nassirpour against Hoover (0-7, 0-2 in league).
Nassirpour scored just 19 seconds into the match to make it 1-0. She then scored three goals in a row in a 60-second span midway through the first quarter to extend the lead to 5-1.
“She’s such a solid athlete,” said Glendale Coach Casey Sripramong , whose team began league Tuesday with a 14-7 win against Pasadena. “She can get the offense going, like she did today. She always working hard at practice and sets a good example.”
Glendale also received four goals from Anna Ter-Mkrtchyan, two from Jamie Fritz and one from Amanda Briones
Hoover showed marked improvement Thursday after beginning league Tuesday with a 14-2 loss at Burbank.
The Tornadoes closed to within 6-4 on a goal by Teni Moradian with 2:44 remaining in the second quarter. The Nitros responded by scoring the final three goals of the half to build a 9-4 advantage. Glendale got two goals from Nassirpour and one from Ter-Mkrtchyan to complete the first-half scoring.
Briones made it 12-6 with 5:40 to go in the fourth quarter. Hoover could get no closer than 12-8 on a goal from Moradian with 3:21 left.
The Tornadoes got three goals from Moradian, two from Rebecca Voskanian and one each from Inga Akopyan, Arpi Lusaparyan, Sona Aghasaryan and Anahit Mirzoyan.
“Our awareness in terms of where we needed to be was much better,” Hoover Coach Brittany Connell said. “Our communication was exponentially better and we scored a lot more goals today.
“We had a lot more people involved with the scoring and that’s what I wanted to see. We improved on our counter-attacks. We want to take that next step. It’s kind of like a game of chess.”
Glendale goalkeeper Linet Voskanyan finished with six saves.
Glendale and Hoover will participate in league matches at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. Glendale will take on visiting Burbank and Hoover will travel to meet Crescenta Valley.
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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
