PASADENA — Martin Narinyan received his biggest assignment of the season Thursday afternoon.
It was a doozy, too, and one that the Glendale High boys’ water polo player wasn’t about to pass up. Narinyan was assigned the task of completely shutting down Pasadena driver/utility player Scott Snowden.
Narinyan, a junior utility player, passed the test to help Glendale pick up a 12-5 Pacific League road victory against Pasadena.
“We heard [about Snowden] from the Hoover game [on Tuesday],” said Narinyan, who also had two goals to help the Nitros improve to 8-1 and 2-0 in league. “[Glendale Coach Forest Holbrook] told me to play good defense against him, and that I had to shut him down.
“He’s a tough player, but I also got a lot of help from my teammates.”
Snowden had five goals for Pasadena (4-7, 0-2) in Tuesday’s 14-11 league loss to Hoover. Glendale, which began league action Tuesday with a 17-3 home win against Arcadia and is ranked No. 7 in the latest CIF Southern Section Division VI poll, held Snowden scoreless on six shots.
The Nitros also followed a familiar pattern — scoring early and often in the first quarter. Junior hole/set Gor Asryan, who earned All-Area, all-league and All-CIF honors last season, scored four of his eight goals in the opening quarter. Narinyan scored the first goal to give Glendale a 1-0 lead with 6:06 remaining.
“It was about coming out and playing a solid game,” said Holbrook, who got one goal apiece from Manuk Hakobyan and Simon Grigorian. “We were able to do that.
“Martin did a very good job [on Snowden]. Martin’s a very talented offensive player and he showed a lot of maturity to shut him down in that role.”
Asryan, who helped lead the Nitros to a second-place finish in league and an appearance in the CIF Southern Section playoffs last season, scored four goals in less than four minutes to propel Glendale to a 5-1 lead after the first stanza. Asryan then scored three goals in a row for Glendale to give it an 8-4 lead with 2:49 left in the second quarter. Two of Asryan’s goals came with the man advantage to further deflate the Bulldogs.
The Nitros scored on four of their seven man-advantage opportunities. All of those goals belonged to Asryan, who had a match-high seven goals against Arcadia.
Pasadena received three goals from Nick Dunn and two from William Yost.
Narinyan said it was important for the Nitros to pick up another league victory with about a month left in the regular season.
“It’s very big to be 2-0 in league because it can boost your confidence that much more,” Narinyan said. “We know that we still have to work a lot harder, and you do that by not getting overconfident and sticking to our game plan.
“We want to try to win every game.”
