ARMENIAN GAMES CROWN NEW CHAMPS
By Gabriel Rizk

Glendale News Press, CA
July 9 2007

Basketball: Prized men’s and women’s basketball titles change hands
before a packed house.

GLENDALE – With a capacity crowd inside the Birmingham High gymnasium
Saturday night, and even more being turned away at the door, the
men’s and women’s A-Division basketball championships of the 32nd
annual Homenetmen Navasartian Games produced a pair of new champions
following two exciting games.

On the men’s side, defending champion Glendale Ararat was unseated,
losing to Los Angeles Homenetmen, 41-40.

"I thought the pressure was on [Ararat], because the last three years
they have only lost one game and last year they beat us," said Glendale
High graduate Jerry Armen, who competed for L.A. Homenetmen.

"[Saturday night] showed who was the better team."

Ararat Coach Fred Babadjanians — who formerly coached the Glendale
High boys’ basketball team — didn’t agree with Armen’s statement
that the better team won.

"It’s one shot here or one bad call there, and that changes everything
in the game," Babadjanians said.

The thrilling finale came down to a final shot.

With 11 seconds left, Ararat had possession and a chance to win the
game, but Hoover High and Cal Lutheran graduate Zareh Avedian’s shot
inside the three-point line missed short at the buzzer.

"We got pretty close to the shot we wanted to take," said Babadjanians,
who’ll guide the same Ararat team — which will also include Hoover
High’s Zareh Zargaryan — in this year’s bi-annual Pan-Armenian Games
in Yerevan, Armenia in August. "[Avedian] got a pretty good look at
it. If that shot falls, it’s a different celebration."

Armen’s L.A. Homenetmen women’s squad, defending champion and winner
of eight of the past nine A-Division titles, did not fare quite as
well as his men’s team.

With many of the veterans of those title runs missing from this
year’s team because of personal reasons, L.A. Homenetmen was stopped
by Massis on Saturday.

"We couldn’t finish what we started," said Armen, who led his team
into the championship after assuming coaching duties following the
team’s 0-3 start to the tournament. "If I spent more time practicing
with these [new] girls, I think we would have done a lot more and
shown a lot more consistency in the final game.

"So little time, so little personnel."

– Edgar Melik-Stepanyan contributed to this story.