The success last year of the Crescenta Valley girls’ basketball team has garnered more support from the women’s basketball community in Armenia. Tadeh Der Mardirosian, the Women’s Armenian National Team coach and girls’ basketball coach at Glendale High School, lent his hand in building the Women’s Armenian National Team program from the bottom up. He led the team of U16 Girls with his expertise. In the upcoming summer of 2025, Coach Mardirossian will lead the U16 Armenian Women’s team as they participate in the European C Division Championship held in Kosovo. He invested his own time and money to hand-select the team across many regions to potentially podium July 8-13.
There will be a two-week practice regimen in Armenia with the full 11 man squad from June 21-July 6 and then all will travel to Kosovo to play in the U16 FIBA championships against Georgia, Cyprus and Gibraltar in the group A stage.

  Practices and tryouts of three-four times a week started in March. These practices and scrimmages were against some of the better high school and Club teams in Southern California, and the team worked on defensive schemes and offensive skills to help improve last year’s efforts. Heading into this weekend in SoCal, they are 8-1 against teams set up to practice against them.

  The U16 has many girls from California – including from Glendale and La Crescenta – who have put in the hard work after their varsity campaigns for their respective schools. Once again, Ava Gharib and Kelin Shahjanian from Crescenta Valley’s girls’ varsity team will lead the squad after last year’s all-team honorable mention campaigns.

Submitted by Gregory GHARIB