Burroughs High boys’ water polo picks up historic win over Crescenta Valley
PASADENA — Though it was only a regular season game in the middle of October, perhaps there was no bigger day in the history of the Burroughs High boys’ water polo team than Tuesday afternoon.
That was at the least the sentiment from Indians Coach Jacob Cook after his team upset defending Pacific League champion Crescenta Valley, 5-4, at Pasadena City College.
The win is believed to be the first for CIF Southern Section Division V third-ranked Burroughs (18-5, 4-1) over Crescenta Valley. The Indians lost, 14-4, to the Falcons last year and have struggled overall versus the La Crescenta squad since joining the Pacific League in 2006.
“This is the first win since … I don’t really know if we’ve ever beat CV since the Civil War,” Cook said. “It’s huge, one of the biggest wins, if not the biggest win, in program history. It shows you how far this program has come and it’s great, it really is.”
Maybe the most surprising aspect of Tuesday’s game was that Burroughs was far from perfect. It could be argued that the Indians gave the Falcons (9-11, 2-2) more than enough chances to steal a victory.
Burroughs was called for 14 exclusions, including a pair while on offense, while giving away a five-meter penalty shot and drawing one red card.
Yet, for all those gaffes, the Indians were rock solid on defense behind a titanic effort from sophomore goalie Andre Abranyan.
Although Cook had employed a platoon at goalie earlier this season that included junior David Jimenez, on Tuesday Abranyan rewarded his coach’s faith with 16 saves.
Perhaps the biggest stuff came with 2:31 remaining as Burroughs junior JJ Ambartsumyan was accessed a red-card ejection and the Falcons were awarded a five-meter penalty, down, 5-4.
Abranyan anticipated that Crescenta Valley’s Reagan Hesse would shoot left and did, right into the arms of the sophomore keeper, who swatted the ball out of play.
“[Abranyan] performed well over the weekend and I thought he was the right choice,” Cook said. “I think that five-meter block and everything else today proved that.”
Despite the miss, the Falcons still had a handful of attempts left in the game and gave themselves one more chance when Noah Kim garnered a steal and called timeout with 11.56 seconds left in the game.
Out of the break, the Indians defense smothered the Falcons as Burroughs senior Aram Nordanyan tightly defended Crescenta Valley’s David Komjathy, who had a final behind-the-back shot stopped as time expired.
Though Crescenta Valley outshot Burroughs, 29-26, the Falcons struggled all day scoring. The squad often settled for perimeter shots and perhaps most frustratingly for coach Jan Sakonju, finished three for 12 on man-advantage chances.
“We were unable to convert on those opportunities,” Sakonju said. “We had created the opportunities to score to get back into the game, to regain control of it and we absolutely blew it on simple fundamentals.”
Crescenta Valley started well enough when senior Brandon Fernandez scored on a six-on-five chance with 5:09 left in the first quarter to give the home team a 1-0 advantage.
The score preceded a long drought, as Crescenta Valley went the next 14 minutes and 1 second without a goal.
Meanwhile, Burroughs slowly built its lead, first tying the game at 3:04 in the first on a score from Nordanyan off an assist from David Arakelyan (three goals).
Marko Vucetic then put his team up for good with a goal right before the end of the first that gave the Indians a 2-1 lead.
Arakelyan added two goals in the second quarter as Burroughs took a 4-1 lead into the break.
Though the Falcons finally scored on a goal from Rouben Saakian off an assist from Komjathy at 6:15 in the third quarter, Burroughs closed out the third with the final of Arakelyan’s three goals to lead, 5-2.
Crescenta Valley pulled close on goals from Kurtis McNevin and Hesse, the latter with 2:37 left that brought the Falcons within 5-4.
--
Andrew J. Campa, andrew.campa@latimes.com
Twitter: @campadresports
