Pasadena Poly water polo brings home CIF plaque

IRVINE — For three quarters of Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division V championship match, the Glendale High boys’ water polo team was just what it’s been all season long – the best team in the division.

For the quarter that mattered most, however, that distinction belonged to Pasadena Poly.

On the verge of losing their third CIF title game in a row, the Panthers revived their championship hopes from a three-goal deficit entering the fourth quarter and rallied to stun the top-ranked Nitros with a 12-10 win at William J. Woolett, Jr. Aquatics Center in Irvine.

“It wasn’t looking pretty going into that fourth quarter, but these guys, they fought hard and Glendale put together three great quarters and made us work,” Poly Coach Ryan Katsuyama said. “We were all worried, but the one thing it came down to was our guys really wanting it.

“The guys fought for me really hard and I’m so proud of them.”

Glendale (22-6) led, 9-6, after three quarters and had largely been successful in shutting down Poly’s offensive catalyst, junior utility Spencer Rogers, who would finish with a match-high four goals, but had scored just once to that point.

The Panthers (26-2) were able to find Rogers early in running their vaunted counter-attack and cut the deficit down to 9-8 with Rogers goals at the 5:42 and 5:10 marks of the fourth. The Panthers’ run of unanswered goals stretched to four when Kelly McGee converted at the 4:29 mark and Chris McWilliams (three goals) gave Poly its first lead of the match, 10-9, with a goal with 3:39 left.

“We played really the same defense all game long,” said Glendale Coach Forest Holbrook, who got four goals from David Papazian. “We had the matchups we wanted, but it just came down to them pushing the counter-attack and being able to finish at the end.”

Manuk Piloyan was able to stem Poly’s rally with a game-tying goal at the 2:35 mark, but Brock Hudnut scored on a mid-range skip shot 21 seconds later to give Poly the lead for good.

Piloyan had another shot stopped by Josh Ball (nine saves), leading to a breakaway counter where McWilliams got the ball quickly to Rogers in the middle for a game-icing goal.

“We just refused to lose again,” Rogers said, “it would have just hurt way too much.

“Because we pushed the counter and looked for me early at center, it really gave me an open look.”

Glendale got out to an early 3-1 lead on a powerful backhand shot by Arman Momdzhyan at the 3:49 mark of the first quarter. It was one of the few opportunities that the dynamic Nitros’ season scoring leader would get, as the Panthers made it a priority to deny the ball to set and limited Glendale’s star player to two goals.

“The big guy in the middle is the biggest threat and he’s the closest guy to the cage,” Katsuyama said. “It was very important for our team to make sure we shut him down and forced the shots to come from the outside.”

Poly tied the match at 5 going into halftime on a goal Dennis Grover, assisted by Hudnut, with just one second remaining in the second quarter, but the third quarter saw Glendale take over.

Momdzhyan broke the tie with a whipping turnaround shot at the 6:19 mark and Papzian gave the Nitros an 8-5 lead with 3:36 to go in the third.

“Their best player was able to get the ball in a one-on-one matchup,” Holbrook said. “We did a good job of playing a zone defense against him all game long, but he’s a fantastic player. All the credit goes to Spencer.”