Olympic Men’s Water Polo: Greece, Spain Win Groups; U.S. Tops Croatia for Third

Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Olympic Men’s Water Polo: Greece, Spain Win Groups; U.S. Tops Croatia for Third

Greece and Spain wrapped up their groups in the final round-robin day of Olympic men’s water polo play Monday, while the U.S. scored a 14-11 win over Croatia to finish third in its group.

Quarterfinals are set for Wednesday, with Croatia taking on Spain and Greece taking on Serbia. The U.S. will battle with Australia – which lost a shocker, 14-13, to Japan to wrap up the group – and Ital will take on Hungary in the nightcap.

The U.S. roared out to a 10-5 lead at half to get the better of Croatia. It shot 14-for-24 (58 percent) from the field. Hannes Daube scored three goals to go with three assists. Max Irving had three goals and two helpers, and Ryder Dodd and Alex Bowen had two goals and one assist each. Adrian Weinberg had nine saves.

Croatia got as close as two goals in the final 90 seconds, but Bowen scored with 1:10 left to restore a three-goal lead and put the game away.

Konstantin Kharkov led Croatia with five goals. Loren Fatovic had three goals and one assist.

Spain ended France’s chances of a medal with a 10-8 win, Spain scoring the first three goals of the fourth quarter to break a 7-7 tie.

Bernat Sanahuja had one of those, part of a hat trick. Alberto Munarriz scored three times, and Alvaro Granados paired two goals with two assists. Unai Aguirre was sensational with 17 saves.

Ugo Crousillat tallied a hat trick for France. Thomas Vernoux paired a goal with four assists. Hugo Fontani stopped 11 shots. France was held to just 4-for-26 (15 percent) on action shots.

Hungary won a wild one with Serbia, 17-13, thanks to a 13-5 edge in the middle two quarters. Gergo Zalanki and Gergo Fekete scored four times each. Vince Vigvari paired a goal with three assists. Denes Varga had two and three. Fourteen of the 17 goals were assisted.

Dusan Mandic scored five times for Serbia. Milos Cuk paired three goals with two assists.

Vlado Popadic had six assists plus a goal to lead Serbia to a 10-7 win over Romania. Marko Mrsic scored three times. Tudor-Andrei Fulea had three goals for Romania.

A goal by Seiya Adachi with 11 seconds left gave Japan a consolation win over Australia despite missing the quarterfinals. Adachi scored three times. Yusuke Inaba dominated with six goals and three assists. Taiyo Watanabe had a goal and five assists. Kastuyuki Tanamura stopped nine shots.

Milos Maksimovic had a hat trick for the Aussies.

A power-play goal by Ioannis Fountoulis with 2:56 left was the difference in Greece’s 9-8 win over Italy in what could well be a medal preview. Fountoulis scored twice. Stylianos Argyropoulos led the way with four goals and two assists. Emmanouil Zerdevas tallied 12 saves.

Lorenzo Bruni and Francesco Condemi had three goals each for Italy.

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