Olympic Men’s Water Polo: U.S. Can’t Solve Emmanouil Zerdevas in Loss to Greece

Gianmarco Nicosia of Italy celebrates during a penalty shootout of a match against Montenegro on Thursday; Photo Courtesy: Andrea Staccioli / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Olympic Men’s Water Polo: U.S. Can’t Solve Emmanouil Zerdevas in Loss to Greece

The U.S. fell to 1-2 in pool play at the Paris Olympics, unable to get past Greek goalie Emmanouil Zerdevas in a 13-11 setback on Thursday.

The U.S. led 9-8 with 4:54 left in the third quarter on an Alex Bowen goal, but three straight form Greece, including two from Ioannis Fountoulis, gave it control of the match for good.

The U.S. outshot Greece, 40-26. But Zerdevas made 17 saves in a sensational effort, and Greece shot 50 percent at 13-for-26.

Bowen scored twice to go with an assist. Max Irving also scored twice for the U.S. Adrian Weinberg made eight saves and also scored a sensational goal at the end of the first quarter to tie it at 4.

You gotta see yesterday’s full court buzzer beating water polo goalie goal from USA’s Adrian Weinberg pic.twitter.com/g4GlhQOFS5

— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) August 2, 2024

Fountoulis tallied a hat trick. Stylianos Argyropoulos scored four times. Angelos Vlachopoulos paired a goal with three assists.

Australia edged France, 9-8, on a day full of great games in Round 3 at the Paris Aquatics Centre. Nic Porter was great in goal with 10 saves to backstop the Aussies. Seven players scored, led by a hat trick from Milos Maksimovic.

Ugo Crousillat and Emil Bjorch scored three times each for France.

Italy edged Montenegro, 11-9, in a tight affair that required a shootout. Tied after every quarter, Dusan Matkovic’s goal with 2:34 left helped Montenegro push the game to the shootout.

After the first three shooters converted, the next five missed, with two saves from Italian goalie Gianmarco Nicosia. Francesco Condemi won it with the first shot of the fifth round for Italy.

Francesco Di Fulvio led Italy with three goals. Andrea Fondelli scored twice, and Gregory Enchenique paired two goals with two assists. Nicosia had eight saves.

Vlado Popadic had three goals for Montenegro. Matkovic scored twice, Vasilijie Radovich had a goal and three assists and Dejan Lasovic turned aside 10 shots.

Spain pulled away in the fourth quarter from Serbia for an 15-11 decision. Alvaro Granados scored three of his four goals in the fourth quarter to apply the cushion. He added two assists. Felipe Perrone was 3-for-3 shooting with two assists. Alberto Munarriz and Bernat Sanahuja scored twice apiece.

Dusan Mandic led Serbia with four goals.

Croatia built a 3-0 lead after one quarter and never looked back in an 11-8 win over Romania. Maro Jokovic pulled the strings with two goals and four assists. Loren Fatovic and Jerko Marinic Kragic scored twice apiece, while Marko Bijac stopped 10 shots.

Tudor-Andrei Fulea and Andrei Tepelus led Romania with two goals each. Marius-Florin Tic’s 13 saves kept them in touch.

Hungary led by five at the half in coasting to a 17-11 win over Japan. All 11 players scored for Hungary, led by four for Vince Vigvari and three for Denes Varga. Of the 17 goals, 14 were assisted.

Taiyo Watanabe led Japan with three goals.

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