Crescenta Valley girls’ basketball overpowers Glendale
GLENDALE — After winning the Pacific League title last season, the Crescenta Valley High girls’ basketball team is aware there are plenty of obstacles ahead in its quest to repeat.
The Falcons appear hungry to win another league crown and have performed well despite being without the services of arguably their best player.
Crescenta Valley received a balanced scoring attack and played aggressive defense Monday en route to a convincing 55-36 league road win against Glendale.
Crescenta Valley (12-4, 3-0 in league) received 11 points apiece from Michelle Boghossian and Georgina Kregorian and 10 from Rachel Dayag to turn back Glendale (10-7, 2-1).
“Our league will be tough and close again,” said Crescenta Valley coach Jason Perez, whose team opened with league road victories against Pasadena and Hoover before knocking off a Glendale squad that beat Crescenta Valley twice last season while marching to the CIF Southern Section Division II-A semifinals. “We’ve had a lot of close games here against Glendale and they have a good team.
“I thought we did a lot of good things tonight, including getting a lot of scoring from different players. We are a hard team to cover and we have a lot of options.”
Dayag had eight first-half points to help the Falcons build a 21-12 halftime lead. Boghossian collected nine second-half points to put the finishing touches on the victory.
After Glendale began the third quarter on a 5-0 run to cut the deficit to 22-17, Crescenta Valley got back on track. A three-pointer by Sarah Perez (eight points) gave the Falcons a 29-17 lead with 4:57 to go in the quarter. Later in the quarter, Perez made another three-pointer to make it 34-23.
Boghossian scored on a layup to give the Falcons a 43-32 lead with 5:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.
“It’s a really big win and we did a lot of good things at both ends of the court,” Boghossian said. “We had to execute early on and we wanted to beat them since they beat us both times last year. We made a lot of layups and we did a good job with our passing.”
A basket by Kregorian gave Crescenta Valley a 21-8 lead with 2:30 remaining in the second quarter. Glendale’s Jillian Yanai closed out the first-half scoring with a basket with 32 seconds to go.
Glendale got a team-high eight points from Mary Markaryan and six from Melissa Zamora.
“We didn’t shoot well and we needed one or two more players to have a good game and be able to help out Jillian, who tweaked her ankle against Burbank [on Friday],” Glendale coach Tadeh Mardirosian said. “We have to learn from this and be able to make smarter plays.
“There are a lot of league games left and anybody can beat anybody. We just need to get going the next game.”
The Falcons played their second straight game without starting guard Caity Bouchard. Jason Perez said the junior suffered an ankle injury against Pasadena on Wednesday and it’s not clear when she’ll return.
Crescenta Valley and Glendale will participate in league contests at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The Falcons will continue their six-game road swing at Muir, while the Nitros will host Burroughs.
The teams will meet again Jan. 29 at Crescenta Valley.
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
