Defense stands tall in Hoover water polo’s win over Burroughs

In a game in which the Hoover High boys’ water polo team’s offense lagged at times and visiting Burroughs surged at moments, the Tornadoes leaned on their stout defense throughout.

The host Tornadoes stifled the Indians on six-on-five chances and pulled away for a 13-8 Pacific League victory between the last two undefeated squads within league.

With the victory, Hoover now sits alone atop the Pacific League standings with a 12-3 record and a 3-0 mark in league, ahead of CIF Southern Section Division V fifth-ranked Burroughs (12-5, 2-1 in league) and defending league champion Crescenta Valley (7-9, 1-1).

“I think on defense today, we communicated a lot better than we normally do,” said Hoover senior goalie Jonathan Salandi, who finished with 15 saves. “We worked as a team; we matched Burroughs’ effort and made them work for every goal.”

Burroughs certainly had its chances to land a monumental league win, due in part to Hoover’s aggressiveness, as the Tornadoes were called for 10 kickouts.

Yet, Salandi and the Tornadoes defense held Burroughs to two for 10 on six-on-five opportunities, while the Indians only attempted six shots out of the man-advantage position.

Perhaps the most impactful quarter was the third, as Burroughs won the second quarter, 3-2, to pull within 6-3 at halftime.

Twenty seconds into the third quarter, Hoover snapped out of its offensive funk with a quick goal from senior Levon Tarverdov, who surprised the Burroughs defense with a quick perimeter shot.

Hoover added another goal from senior Harout Ashkharian (game-high five goals) to go up, 8-3, before Burroughs countered with a six-on-five goal from junior JJ Ambartsumyan off an assist from David Arakelyan (team-high four goals, three assists and three steals) with 5:01 left to bring the Indians within, 8-5.

The score came on the first man-advantage attempt of the second half for Burroughs, which had three other tries in the third quarter stuffed, thanks to two blocks from Salandi.

On the flip side, Hoover added a six-on-five goal from Ashkharian and a goal with 11 seconds left from Tarverdov set up on another block from Salandi, who finished with six saves in the quarter.

Though Burroughs got one additional third-quarter score from Aram Nordanyan with 70 seconds left, Indians Coach Jacob Cook lamented the missed opportunities as his team trailed, 10-5, heading to the fourth quarter.

“We could have done better and should have done better, but we made a lot of offensive mistakes,” Cook said. “If we want to be a threat, we have to get better on six-on-five.

“It’s actually something we work on in practice and we just had a brain fart today. Our stats are usually better.”

Salandi finished with five saves in the fourth as the teams scored three goals each, resulting in a 13-8 final.

Early on, it didn’t seem like Burroughs would be able to hang around.

Though the Indians defense, centered around the goalkeeping duo Andre Abranyan and David Jimenez (12 saves), held the Tornadoes to right around their 13.5 goals-per-game average, Burroughs trailed, 4-0, after one quarter behind two goals from David Ashkharian.

Burroughs finally got on the board with a goal from Eric Aperian off an assist from Arakelyan with 5:55 to go in the second quarter. The goal keyed a 3-1 spurt and brought the visitors within 5-3 on a goal from Nordanyan and brought about a yellow card against Hoover Coach Kevin Witt for arguing with 2:49 left in the first half.

Hoover then responded, first by stopping two Indians’ six-on-five chances while David Ashkharian (three goals and four steals) scored with 1:35 left to give his team a 6-3 lead going into the half.

Hoover’s defense also received a boost from senior Aren Sukiasyan, who finished with six steals.

“We didn’t really stick to the game plan that much today, but I think we showed that we have a lot of talent and it’s difficult to deal with consistently for four quarters,” Witt said. “I think we had a lull there in the second quarter, but we had some good work out of the bench and our defense made some plays.”