La Cañada boys’ basketball staves off Glendale

LA CAÑADA — For most of its La Cañada Holiday Classic game Tuesday evening, the Glendale High boys’ basketball team gave highly-ranked La Cañada all it could handle.

Struggling with shooting woes early, the Spartans maintained a lead against the Nitros for most of the contest, but couldn’t put Glendale away.

The Nitros stuck around and rallied late in the fourth quarter, taking a two-point lead with 1:30 left. But the resilient Spartans were eventually able take back the lead in the final seconds to earn a 48-43 victory at home.

“That’s a very good team,” Glendale Coach Ib Belou said about La Cañada, which is ranked No. 2 in CIF Southern Section Division I-A. “We were able to do some good things today and I think we learned a lot from this game. It was a great effort by our guys.

“I think this team has continued to improve and we will work on some things to try and get better for our next game.”

The Spartans (6-1) had momentum going into the game, having defeated Hollywood, 82-32, on Monday to open their tournament. But La Cañada came out cold against Glendale (2-4), missing its share of shots in the first half.

In the first half, La Cañada converted nine of its 33 shots from the field (27.3%).

“Defensively, I thought we did pretty good, but give credit to Glendale, I thought that they controlled the tempo of the game,” said Spartans Coach Tom Hofman, whose team’s only loss came against Alemany, 70-61 in overtime, in the Sierra Canyon Invitational. “In most of the games we’ve played so far, we’ve done pretty well with our shooting, but you can’t expect that all the time and you know you’re going to have a bad day. I thought that we forced the ball a little too much today and that hurt us.”

La Cañada needed a fine effort from Justin Kouyoumdjian to hold off the Nitros. The senior scored 19 points and led his team in scoring in the crucial third and fourth quarters. Sean Estes added 12 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, Patric Panoosi chipped in 11 points and Ryan Graves had nine rebounds for the Spartans.

In the fourth quarter, Glendale overcame a nine-point deficit. The Nitros took the lead, 43-41, on a driving layup from Edrik Abnous-Masihi (10 points, six rebounds) with 1:30 remaining. But on the Spartans’ next possession, Panoosi sank a three-pointer with 1:09 remaining to put the Spartans back on top, 44-43.

Glendale couldn’t score on its next possession and was forced to foul, and La Cañada made its free throws late.

It was a defensive first quarter, with La Cañada holding on to a 9-4 lead. The Spartans were able to pick up the pace in the second quarter, outscoring the Nitros, 14-8, and went into halftime up by 11, 23-12.

“I’m a captain and, being a senior, I know I have to step up when things aren’t going right for us,” Kouyoumdjian said. “We just have to trust each other that we’re going to come though. “But Glendale played tough. Maybe we didn’t expect them to come out and play like they did, but credit to them. … I’m just glad that we came out in front at the end.”

The Spartans had a 36-24 lead after three quarters.

Eli Degrate had 12 points and Daniel Madden chipped in with 10 for Glendale.