La Cañada girls’ water polo takes over in fourth quarter for nonleague win over Burbank
Shereen Emadi during Thursday’s nonleague match.
It was a hot start for the La Cañada High girls’ water polo team, as the Spartans notched six goals over two quarters in a nonleague match against Burbank on Thursday.
With a five-goal deficit in the second quarter, the Bulldogs recovered to pull within one at the half and keep the Spartans scoreless after the third quarter.
However, La Cañada got out of its scoring slump in the fourth quarter and tallied four goals in a span of two minutes to win, 11-6, at Burbank.
“The way I coached the game was more about putting kids that are not as experienced with a specific group and just experimenting,” said Echeveira, who officiated the first quarter after referees failed to show up for the contest and the teams went with a makeshift official after the first.
“When I put a specific lineup, you can see the intensity level pick up on both ends and we were able to score when we wanted to. It was just a good game for us to teach the younger kids who haven’t had that much experience to play against a team and learn from making turnovers and making mistakes on the go.”
Senior Tess Fundter led La Cañada with five goals and two assists and goalkeeper Jessica Chilton saved 13 shots and scored a goal.
“We’re always a really supportive team, so we just built up each others’ spirit and telling each other we could do it,” Fundter said. “We were just going for it and we knew we had it in us. It was just a matter of getting it out.”
Burbank (4-4) was led by senior Sera Shabhazian with five goals, while goalkeeper Jenny Stepanyan registered eight saves, two of which kept the Spartans off the board in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs struck first 26 seconds in from Shabhazian. The Spartans (3-4) responded with six straight goals, which started with a score from Fundter to tie it at 1 at 6:18 in the opening quarter.
La Cañada doubled its lead on a goal from Meadow Solares at 5:11 in the first, before Fundter scored her second and Spartans’ Shereen Emadi added another for a 4-1 lead before the end of the quarter.
Senior Shelby Hovanesian opened the La Cañada scoring in the second with a goal at the 5:35 mark and Fundter capped her first-half hat-trick midway into the quarter for a 6-1 lead after a five-goal spurt.
Burbank came alive with a one-on-one goal from Gabriela Aghajanyan with 2:46 left in the first half for a 6-2 La Cañada advantage.
Shabhazian followed to score three goals in the final 2:33 of the second quarter to cut the Spartans advantage to 6-5 at halftime.
“They were trying to fix all their mistakes in the second quarter,” said Burbank coach Melani Aghazarian, a 2014 Glendale High graduate who was coached by Echeveira at L.A. Valley College. “I think they hyped each other up in the break, so I think they got a burst of energy and just started going off.”
A scoreless third quarter saw Chilton make four saves in the frame and Stepanyan block two shots, both in the final two minutes of the quarter to keep the Spartans off the board.
“She blocks a lot of those one-on-nobodies,” said Aghazarian of her junior goalkeeper. “She works really hard. She’s great being that last-minute save that we need.”
Stepanyan’s effort continued into the fourth quarter when she saved a shot from Solares, but the junior followed up with a score off a Spartans inbound pass to end the drought and lift La Cañada to a 7-5 lead with 6:21 remaining.
“It’s just building chemistry and building trust within one another,” Echeveira said. “There’s going to be a game where maybe we get into foul trouble and I have to put a freshman in and they have to be ready for that moment. I think helping them build confidence is key in these types of games.”
What followed was a four-goal run from the Spartans, who received a goal from Beatriz Untulan with 5:06 left before Fundter added a pair of goals for a 10-5 lead.
Shabhazian pulled one back for Burbank with 1:14 left for a 10-6 score, but Chilton sealed the win with a goal from mid-pool with 0:44 remaining.
