Glendale makes case for postseason
NORTHWEST GLENDALE — As closing arguments go, the Glendale High girls’ basketball team’s 53-31 win over Hoover in a Pacific League regular-season finale on Thursday could ultimately prove convincing.
That’s what the Nitros are hoping, anyway, as they prepare to petition CIF for an at-large playoff berth ahead of the release of postseason brackets on Sunday.
“It was still 50/50 and I told [the players] it would still depend on the outcome of this game,” Glendale Coach Tania Adary said of her plans to file the petition. “It wasn’t even [a matter of] a win or loss. It was how they won and if they earned it.
“It looks like they earned it from the beginning, so we’re gonna try to get in and hope for the best.”
Point guard Anna Shahinian led Glendale (12-13, 5-9 in league) with 24 points, including nine in the first quarter, and the hot-shooting Nitros made five three-pointers in the third quarter to all but put the game away early. Glendale led by eight after the first period and never by fewer after that, as it went on a 10-1 run to begin the second period.
Shahinian hit a pull-up jumper to spark the run, which also included a three-pointer from Stella Ghazarian and a layup from Lidia Rivas, before sinking a wide-open three-pointer to put Glendale up, 24-7.
“She showed she wanted it,” Adary said of Shahinian, a senior. “She threw her heart out there and I think it was like a domino effect she started and everyone just picked up.”
Ghazarian, Shahinian and Marlow Tomasian all made three-pointers within the first five minutes of the third period, during which Glendale built its lead up to 35-17.
Ghazarian, who finished with 14 points on five of six shooting, then hit back-to-back threes out of the right corner on dishes from Tomasian (six assists) to give the Nitros their biggest lead yet, 41-19.
“I told them that if they got the shot, shoot it, but keep attacking,” Adary said. “But they were just open and it’s tempting. If you’re making them, you’re not going to stop, so I gave them the green light.”
It was different story on Thursday from when the teams first met on Jan. 23, a close game that ended with a 41-39 win for Glendale.
After getting their first league win in that game, Glendale went 5-3 in league down the stretch.
“They turned their whole season around after that win against us,” said Hoover Coach Martik Ghookasian, who got nine points apiece from Chelsea Baqueiro and Nela Sarkissian. “For us, I think that loss took us a step back and we didn’t really recover.
“They’ve gotta be motivated, but from our standpoint, we just didn’t do the job we’re supposed to do.”