Defense leads Cleveland High to City boys' water polo Open Division title

Defense wins championships.

The Cleveland High boys’ water polo team proved that axiom true once again, limiting defending champion Palisades to one goal in the final three quarters of a 15-4 victory in the City Section Open Division final Wednesday night at Valley College.

Arman Tarakhchyan netted seven goals while Arthur Petrosian added four for the No. 2-seeded Cavaliers (17-9), who won their third section title and second in a row, having earned the inaugural Division I crown last season.

Cleveland ended Palisades’ string of 11 straight section titles and snapped the Dolphins’ streak of 43 straight City Section playoff victories. The last time they had lost a City playoff contest was in 2011 when they fell to Cleveland 14-3 in the quarterfinals.

“Our goal Allen McWeeny played a huge part in this — he came up with some huge saves — but from the second the game started we said we’re gonna figure out the guys they have and how to defend them,” Tarakhchyan said. “We knew about Charlie [Speiser] and had someone on him at all times. It was really just about slowing things down and playing Cleveland water polo.”

Scoring once each for the Cavaliers were Charlie Rinsky, Matias Ramirez and Gregory Dzhigneyan. Speiser and Hudson Mirzadeh scored twice apiece for the top-seeded Dolphins (12-17), who downed Cleveland in the finals twice during their dynastic run, prevailing 16-9 in 2019 and 22-7 in 2021.

The score was tied 3-3 after the first quarter, but the Cavaliers’ suffocating defense began to take hold in the second quarter as Cleveland scored three times to take a 6-2 lead into halftime. Petrosian scored twice on breakouts in the last 35 seconds of the third quarter to give Cleveland a commanding seven-goal lead.

“On a lot of our drives if I get a mismatch, I call for the ball,” added Tarakhchyan, who converted two of his three five-meter chances. “Our mindset is that its 0-0 after every quarter. We always play like we just started the game and never take our foot off the gas.”

Earlier, Granada Hills beat crosstown rival Kennedy 21-10 to win the Division I title — its first boys’ water polo title in school history.

Granada Hills’ Justin Villatoro scores against Kennedy in the Division I final.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Gor Mesropian led the way with five goals, Jason Bowden and Sebastian Villagrana had four apiece and One Abramian, Justin Villatoro, Levon Iochyan and Ethan Kilimnik each added two for the top-seeded Highlanders, who scored seven times in the first quarter and four straight goals to begin the second half.

Andrew Joyce scored five goals and Jorge Aguilar Gomez added three for the third-seeded Golden Cougars.