All-Area Boys’ Water Polo Player of the Year: Sound advice leads to success for Ashkharian

On the pool deck leading up to the beginning of his freshman season with the Hoover High boys’ water polo team, Harout Ashkharian found himself surrounded by a group of seniors.

The seniors had come to take Ashkharian under their wings with an emphasis on helping him become a consummate playmaker.

Ashkharian had an open mind and immediately wanted to soak up as much information as possible. Ashkharian’s listening and learning skills led to him achieving plenty of success for a Hoover squad that contended for Pacific League titles and qualified regularly for the CIF playoffs.

“I had realized that they wanted to push me to become better, because I had just been playing a few years before that,” said Ashkharian, a senior attacker. “They saw that I had potential and Hoover had some good teams just before I came.

“So that group was thinking about the future of the program. They worked with me on shooting and how to play defense. We had some very good players in my grade and they wanted us to be the next group to take the program to a better place. They worked with me on things like getting stronger and faster and I could see the improvement through the years.”

Ashkharian completed his four-year career with Hoover on a high note, finishing with 74 goals, 58 assists and 53 steals and helping the Tornadoes win their first Pacific League championship since 1989. Ashkharian was named the league’s player of the year for the first time and also led Hoover to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Division II playoffs.

It was because of those accomplishments that Ashkharian was selected the 2016 All-Area Boys’ Water Polo Player of the Year, as voted by the sportswriters of the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and La Cañada Valley Sun.

After Ashkharian scored a career-high 106 goals and received All-Area and All-CIF Southern Section Division IV accolades last season, he wanted to come back better than ever in 2016. Hoover featured a lineup of mostly seniors, putting them in position to vie for the league championship after placing second in 2015.

Hoover finished 22-6, 8-0 in league and ended its title drought, with the defining moment coming Nov. 3 with a convincing 17-8 win against Burroughs in the Pacific League Tournament championship to wrap up an outright title.

“That was such a great moment to be a part of, because we had come so close the year before to winning,” Ashkharian said. “My teammates and I continued to push each other harder because we all believed we had a good shot at winning league.

“We tried to do a real good job of setting each other up and put ourselves in good position to have success. We had so much experience and we wanted to make it count.”

Ashkharian had some impressive efforts throughout league competition. He scored a team-high five goals to spark Hoover to a 12-8 win against Crescenta Valley on Oct. 6 at Pasadena City College. In a match against Burroughs, which would go on to win the Division V championship, on Oct. 11, he tallied five goals in a 13-8 victory.

Hoover, which featured a group of talented athletes such as Jonathan Salandi, David Ashkharian, Aren Sukiasyan, Levon Gukasyan and Levon Haik Gukasyan, started its playoff journey with a 12-8 overtime win against Dos Pueblos. Hoover then fell, 13-11, to top-seeded Laguna Beach in the second round.

Losing in the second round stung Ashkharian and the Tornadoes, who had aspirations of bringing Hoover its first CIF crown.

“We had the goal of trying to go and win CIF and we thought we had the pieces in place to do that,” Ashkharian said. “Moving up a couple of divisions was tough because you were always going to play a good team along the way.”

Hoover Coach Kevin Witt said Ashkharian had the paramount skills to aid the Tornadoes.

“We knew over the last couple of years that he did a lot of things to improve his overall game,” Witt said. “Harout was a different type of player in each of his four years.

“When he first started, he was a great defender. Then we moved him up and he right away became a much better offensive player. He excelled on offense and defense this year. He could score the big goals, but he also proved to be a phenomenal passer and defender. He was comfortable in any role he needed to play.”

Opposing coaches made note of Ashkharian’s skill level, including Crescenta Valley’s Jan Sakonju.

“Ever since he started playing at Hoover, he’s had that ability to shoot accurately and score,” Sakonju said. “I’ve always been impressed with that.

“I saw him play in some of the same tournaments that we did and he took shots from tough positions, but he found a way to beat you when the goalkeeper had the positional advantage. Harout is an excellent two-way player. When you have a team that’s got so many great role players, like Hoover did, you still need to have that star player who can take them to the next level. He did that.”