Burroughs boys’ water polo overpowers Glendale
GLENDALE — Though it has a CIF championship to its credit, there’s another title the Burroughs High boys’ water polo team would like to reel it — a Pacific League crown
After finishing second in league behind Hoover before winning a first-ever CIF Southern Section Division V title last season, the Indians are moving closer to reaching that goal.
Burroughs took another step toward accomplishing that feat Tuesday, as David Arakelyan finished with a match-high seven goals in an 18-13 league win at Glendale.
“We finished third in league two years ago and second last year, so we want to take that next step up,” said Arakelyan, who earned All-Area recognition after being named the division’s player of the year last season. “We’ve got something good going here and I think the pieces are in place for a run at league.
“We know we still have a few matches left, so there’s a lot of work left to be done. We have to keep putting the work in at practice. We started slow today in the first quarter and we had to pick it up from the second quarter on. “
Burroughs (12-10, 4-0 in league) received four goals from Arthur Seseyan and three from Marko Vucetic to top Glendale (10-5, 2-3). It also got two goals each from JJ Ambardsumyan and Chase Legorreta.
Glendale held a 4-3 lead after the first quarter before Burroughs surged in the second quarter. The Indians scored five unanswered goals to take an 8-4 lead. Arakelyan and Vucetic each had two goals in that stretch.
“We came out a little bit complacent in the first quarter and then we talked about needing to put things together,” said Burroughs coach Jacob Cook, whose team has scored 41 goals in its last two league matches, including a 23-12 win versus Hoover on Thursday. “We didn’t know too much about Glendale, but they played well in the first quarter.
“We needed to have that purpose and that was to get back to being focused. We got a couple of goals from David and he’s a very passionate player who is getting better.”
Glendale, which didn’t qualify for the playoffs last season, closed out the first-half scoring with 11 seconds left on a goal by Vachik Gharibyan.
Arakelyan scored the first two goals of the third quarter in the first minute to give the Indians a 10-6 lead. Gevork Karapetyan, who led the Nitros with five goals, scored to trim the deficit to 11-8 with 2:51 to play in the third quarter.
Arakelyan scored with 4:31 remaining in the fourth quarter to make it 16-10.
Glendale got four goals from Hike Pashaian and two apiece from Gharibyan and Arno Tatos.
“When we played Crescenta Valley last week, we played the first quarter like we were going to lose,” Glendale coach Narek Vardanian said. “Then we played better the rest of the way.
“We played very well in the first quarter today and we held our own going into the fourth quarter. We got into the fourth quarter and we got a little bit nervous. We want to build off the way we played the first three quarters and just go from there.”
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
