Hoover skid halted at 18 in blowout

NORTHWEST GLENDALE — It’s been some time since the Hoover High basketball team’s sideline was all smiles following a Pacific League game, and that’s something that had surely been weighing on the team leading up to Wednesday’s home game against Muir.

It’s an issue the Tornadoes no longer have to worry about after defeating the Mustangs, 67-41, in a game that saw Hoover in high spirits from the beginning to the end — of both the game and an 18-game league losing streak dating back to the 2007-08 league campaign.

“We finally stepped up and did something that we needed to do for quite a long time now,” said Hoover Coach Henrik Sardarbegian, whose team’s last league win came on Feb. 7, 2008 by the score of 61-58 over archrival Glendale. “It’s kind of like one of those things that just stays with you and it eventually just caught up with our kids in their head. We were kind of mentally out of it up until tonight.”

Hoover, which was led by 18 points from Sevada Minassians and 14 from Narek Abcarian, used a big first-quarter run to essentially run away with the game.

After seeing Muir (6-11, 1-5 in league) go up, 4-0, the Tornadoes (10-9, 1-5) scored the next 18 points unanswered to take firm control.

Samson Injigulyan scored eight of his 12 points in the opening quarter, while Abcarian had four steals to pace a strong first-quarter defensive showing.

Hoover scored eight straight points off steals as part of its opening run and led, 20-6, after the first quarter.

“We’ve taken ourselves out of our own game, and that’s defense, and we just wanted to push ourselves to get that win and work hard,” said Minassians, who also had four rebounds and four assists. “At practice, we’ve just focused on playing defense and letting the game come to us, and we didn’t let up.”

Muir pulled to within 11 at the half and got as close as 35-28 midway through the third quarter before Hoover put the game away with another surge.

Abcarian hit a three-pointer to put Hoover back up by 10 at the 5:00 mark, sparking a 10-2 run that included a three-pointer by Minassians and a three-point play by Arbi Abelian, who scored 11 points off the bench.

Abelian converted another three-point play to put Hoover up, 54-30, in the fourth quarter and the lead grew to as big as 30 on a tip-in by Reni Nazari with 2:08 to play.

Hoover will now look to start a winning streak against Glendale on Friday.

“It’s a win, but it’s not the biggest win,” Minassians said. “We’ve got our rival on Friday. This is just a confidence boost, just motivation for our next game so we can keep getting wins.”