Hoover water polo makes quick work of rival Glendale
GLENDALE — In front of a packed and noisy pool deck on a warm afternoon, the Hoover High and Glendale boys’ water polo teams met in their annual Pacific League cross-town rivalry match.
That was all that David Ashkharian needed to ignite him.
“It’s always fun getting to play in a rivalry game because the players from both teams know each other and it’s always going to be competitive,” said Ashkharian, who scored a match-high six goals to power Hoover to a convincing 23-8 Pacific League road win Wednesday. “I think it helped our team with our guys being in a zone and having everybody get involved.
“You feed off of that. We were able to get some counter-attacks and were able to convert them into goals. I was just trying to get the ball and shoot.”
Hoover, which won the league championship last season for the first time since 1989, will enter the league tournament Tuesday at Arcadia High as the No. 3 seed behind Burroughs and Crescenta Valley. Burroughs recorded a 27-21 victory against Burbank and Crescenta Valley picked up an 8-4 win versus Arcadia on Thursday. Burroughs, Crescenta Valley and Hoover are all 5-1 in league with seedings determined by a goals-allowed tiebreaker in head-to-head competition between the teams. Arcadia (3-3) will be the fourth seed.
Hoover got three straight goals from Ashkharian to build a 3-0 lead in the first quarter. Two of the goals came off counter-attacks in less than two minutes.
“In a couple of our games this year, we’ve had some slow starts,” said Hoover coach Kevin Witt, a former Glendale High standout who went on to play for the USA National team. “Sometimes it can be hard to battle back.
“It was imperative to start fast in the first few minutes and get a lead. There’s little I have to say to them to get them motivated for a rivalry game.”
A goal by Neky Tsaturyan gave Hoover an 8-2 lead with 3:31 left in the second quarter. Tsaturyan finished with three goals.
The Tornadoes held an 11-4 lead at halftime.
The Tornadoes outscored the Nitros (11-6, 2-4 in league for fifth place) by a 7-1 margin in the third quarter to pad the lead to 18-5. Ashkharian, a reigning All-Area selection, and Hakop Ansuryan had two goals in the third quarter. Ansuryan contributed four goals.
Hoover, which qualified for the CIF Southern Section Division II playoffs last season, received two goals each from Jordan Corpuz and Nic Saladini and one apiece from Samvel Manukyan, Armando Honarchian, Simon Wang, Robert Akopyan and Anthony Ziccardi.
The Nitros, ranked seventh in Division VI, got four goals from Gevork Karapetyan, three from Nick Schmitt and one from Hike Pashaian.
“We expected a closer score, but you’ve got to give Hoover a lot of credit,” Glendale coach Narek Vardanian said. “They lost a lot of seniors from last year and they still have a lot of talent.
“I thought we could have played a lot more polished. Especially in a rivalry game.”
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
