Tolog triumph gets top spot

3 Hakop Kaplanyan leads Hoover High water polo to greatest season in school history: The prologue to the third-biggest story of the year was written in the offseason, when Kaplanyan, the area's best player throughout his first three years as a Tornado, confirmed his intention to transfer to archrival Glendale for his senior season. The CIF office did its due diligence on the proposed move, eventually disallowed it on the grounds that it was athletically motivated and the rest is Hoover history.

Under new Coach Kevin Witt, Kaplanyan rededicated himself to the purple and white and put the Tornadoes on his back all the way to the CIF Southern Section Division V semifinals, the furthest the Tornadoes had ever advanced in the playoffs. Kaplanyan enjoyed the best postseason performances of his illustrious career, hitting a game-winner just before the buzzer to lift Hoover to a 14-13 win over Walnut in the opening round before scoring to send the quarterfinal match against Palm Desert to overtime, then sealing the 16-15 win with three more overtime tallies.

"We went to quarterfinals [my sophomore] year and I said to myself I'm not going out in the quarterfinals, I need to get to the semifinals," Kaplanyan said. "[Regulation] last minute, overtime last minute, I'm just there for my team every time."

Unfortunately for the Tornadoes, Kaplanyan would never get a chance to one up himself in the semis, as he was hit with an exclusion in the first quarter of Hoover's loss to Pasadena Poly providing a disappointing ending to an otherwise exhilarating campaign.

4 Crescenta Valley High softball program architect Dan Berry passes away: After building the Falcons softball program from the ground up in 1983 and successfully piloting it to 20 Pacific League titles and a CIF championship in 1986, Berry was as recognizable and revered a coaching icon as any in the area at the time of his death at age 65 on October 26.

The events leading up to Berry's passing — the pair of seizures he suffered in the school's athletic office on Oct. 11 and a subsequent span of several days spent in Verdugo Hills Hospital on a ventilator before finally being transferred to the hospice wing there for his final hours — took the area by surprise and left many clamoring for updates on his condition and prognosis.

On Nov. 19, Berry's life and accomplishments were honored and celebrated at CV by an assembly of friends, colleagues and some of the many former players he coached at CV.