La Cañada boys’ water polo bests San Marino, grabs share of first place
After losing its Rio Hondo League opener, the La Cañada High boys’ water polo team has regrouped to put itself atop the standing at the midway point.
On Tuesday, George Avakian finished with a team-high four goals to help La Cañada earn an 11-9 win against San Marino.
“We’re in a much better spot now since we lost the first game to Temple City,” La Cañada Coach Josh Rodriguez said. “Losing that game to Temple City turned out to be an eye-opener for our guys, because it told us we needed to be more focused.
“Now, we are playing our style. I thought we were a lot more patient with our shots. We shot the ball at the right time, but not always at the right place.”
La Cañada moved into a tie with San Marino (16-7, 4-1) and Temple City (4-1 in league) for first place. The Spartans, ranked second in CIF Southern Section Division V behind Corona, will meet Temple City at 5 p.m. Thursday at Pasadena City College.
Avakian, a freshman utility, gave the Spartans a 5-4 lead with 5:37 remaining in the second quarter. Avakian scored two first-quarter goals to give the Spartans a 3-1 lead.
“[My teammates] did a great job of finding me at the right times,” Avakian said. “It led to getting good scoring opportunities or drawing ejections.
“We’ve been working a lot harder the last couple of weeks and things are starting to pay off because we know each other more and the communication has gotten a lot better. I expect a lot of the teams in league to come back stronger in the second half, so we are going to have to try extra harder if we want to win league.”
Toby Chung of La Cañada scored to give the Spartans a 6-4 lead with 54 seconds left in the second quarter.
Avakian made it 7-4 with 4:37 remaining in the third quarter.
After San Marino closed to within 8-6 on a goal by Ethan Lai with five seconds left in the third quarter, the Titans and Spartans scored three goals apiece in the fourth quarter. Alessio Brunochelli of San Marino scored to bring the Titans to within 8-7 with 5:26 to go in the fourth quarter.
La Cañada’s Luke Stefan scored a man-advantage goal with 3:19 to go in the fourth quarter to make it 9-7. After San Marino’s Dillon Goldsmith scored to cut the deficit to 10-9 with 1:47 remaining, Chung sealed the victory with a goal 17 seconds later.
“With [Avakian] out there, it’s going to demand the other team to place their best player on him,” Rodriguez said. “At the same time, it will free up our other players most of the time. He scored some big goals early on today.”
La Cañada received two goals apiece from Stefan, Alec Abrahamian and Chung and one from Vince Wardle. Brunochelli collected a team-best four goals for the Titans.
La Cañada goalkeeper Reed Fundter finished with eight saves, including six in the second half.
