Armenian Games crown new champs

GLENDALE — With a capacity crowd inside the Birmingham High gymnasium Saturday night, and even more being turned away at the door, the men’s and women’s A-Division basketball championships of the 32nd annual Homenetmen Navasartian Games produced a pair of new champions following two exciting games.

On the men’s side, defending champion Glendale Ararat was unseated, losing to Los Angeles Homenetmen, 41-40.

“I thought the pressure was on [Ararat], because the last three years they have only lost one game and last year they beat us,” said Glendale High graduate Jerry Armen, who competed for L.A. Homenetmen. “[Saturday night] showed who was the better team.”

Ararat Coach Fred Babadjanians -- who formerly coached the Glendale High boys’ basketball team -- didn’t agree with Armen’s statement that the better team won.

“It’s one shot here or one bad call there, and that changes everything in the game,” Babadjanians said.

The thrilling finale came down to a final shot.

With 11 seconds left, Ararat had possession and a chance to win the game, but Hoover High and Cal Lutheran graduate Zareh Avedian’s shot inside the three-point line missed short at the buzzer.

“We got pretty close to the shot we wanted to take,” said Babadjanians, who’ll guide the same Ararat team -- which will also include Hoover High’s Zareh Zargaryan -- in this year’s bi-annual Pan-Armenian Games in Yerevan, Armenia in August. “[Avedian] got a pretty good look at it. If that shot falls, it’s a different celebration.”

Armen’s L.A. Homenetmen women’s squad, defending champion and winner of eight of the past nine A-Division titles, did not fare quite as well as his men’s team.

With many of the veterans of those title runs missing from this year’s team because of personal reasons, L.A. Homenetmen was stopped by Massis on Saturday.

“We couldn’t finish what we started,” said Armen, who led his team into the championship after assuming coaching duties following the team’s 0-3 start to the tournament. “If I spent more time practicing with these [new] girls, I think we would have done a lot more and shown a lot more consistency in the final game.

“So little time, so little personnel.”

— Edgar Melik-Stepanyan contributed to this story.