Glendale girls’ water polo gets best of Pasadena, 13-6
SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — After taking off several weeks because of the holidays, the Glendale High and Pasadena girls’ water polo teams sprung back into action Tuesday in a Pacific League-opening match.
With Glendale’s 1-2 punch of Biyouregh Boghozian and Maddie Corpuz providing the offense, the Nitros grabbed the upper hand quickly.
Boghozian finished with six goals and Corpuz added four to carry host Glendale to a 13-6 victory.
Eager to play a match and shake off the rust, Boghozian set the tone early for Glendale (6-7). The senior scored the first five goals for the Nitros, who also limited the Bulldogs (5-10) to two man-advantage goals on nine opportunities.
“I was scared because I figured it would be a close match,” Boghozian said. “It’s one of the bigger games on our schedule in league.
“I thought we were able to come back [after the layoff] and got things together. We were able to get everybody involved.”
Glendale held Pasadena in check, mostly limiting the Bulldogs to shots from the around the perimeter. The Nitros converted on two of their five man-advantage chances and received a five-meter goal from Boghozian.
“I think in the beginning we came out pretty excited,” said Glendale Coach Forest Holbrook, who got two goals from Naira Sarkian and one from Nineli Zargarian. “It’s a league opener and Pasadena is one of our tougher league opponents.
“Once we started to settle down, I thought we played very well. I’m happy with our ball control and limiting Pasadena to only two six-on-five goals.”
After Boghozian scored on a five-meter shot to make it 1-0 with 5:50 left in the first quarter, the Bulldogs received one goal each from Daniela Garcia and Irma Sarac nearly three minutes apart to take a 2-1 lead. Boghozian then scored twice in a 19-second span to give Glendale a 3-2 lead.
Jade Christensen of Pasadena knotted it at 3 with a man-advantage score with 54 seconds left in the opening quarter before Boghozian put the Nitros back on top at 4-3 with 27 seconds remaining.
Boghozian made it 5-3 with 4:40 remaining in the second quarter. After Sarac trimmed the deficit to 5-4 with a man-advantage goal with 1:19 to play in the first half, Corpuz then scored a man-advantage goal 18 seconds later to make it 6-4.
“Biyouregh and Maddie are two of our key players,” Holbrook said. “Biyouregh has a lot of finesse to her game and Maddie provides strength.”
Corpuz and Boghozian scored a goal each less than a minute apart in the third quarter to extend the advantage to 8-4.
“Going into the third quarter, we were still in it,” Pasadena Coach Jennie Jacobsen-Huse said. “We couldn’t connect on some of out six-on-five chances.
“We need to have a little more patience on that. Glendale capitalized on their chances.”
Pasadena received one goal each from Aria Hueso and Susanna Trigueros.
