Olympic Women’s Water Polo: U.S. Blows Four-Goal Lead, Fails to Medal

The Dutch women's water polo bench celebrates after a quarterfinal win over Italy; Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Olympic Women’s Water Polo: U.S. Blows Four-Goal Lead, Fails to Medal

The United States squandered a four-goal lead in the second half of Saturday’s Olympic women’s water polo bronze medal match, watching the Netherlands rally for an 11-10 win that denies the three-time gold medalist a medal of any color in Tokyo.

The U.S. led 9-5 with two minutes left in the third quarter and 10-7 with four minutes left in regulation. But the Americans fell apart down the stretch, allowing four different Dutch scorers to get them their first medal since gold in Beijing in 2008. Sabrina van der Sloot sealed the win with one second left, her fifth goal of the game.

Three Americans scored twice each, but only one of the Americans’ goals was assisted, a level of offensive stagnation that came back to bite them.

The loss marks a disaster for U.S. water polo, the first time it has failed to medal at the Olympics, in the seventh Games since it was instituted in Sydney in 2000. The U.S. won silver in Beijing and Sydney and bronze in Athens before the run of three straight golds.

The U.S. looked in good shape early, leading 7-3 at half. Rachel Fattal opened the scoring on a fastbreak, and Kaleigh Gilchrist scored twice in the second quarter, helping the Americans accrue a 4-1 edge in that frame. The lead stretched to 9-5 on Jordan Raney’s second goal of the game with 1:59 left in the third.

But the Dutch, who rallied from an early deficit to push Spain to the shootout in the semifinal, wasn’t done.

Van der Sloot scored on a fastbreak before the third quarter ended to make it 9-6, then converted a penalty goal after the U.S. missed two chances to restore a four-goal edge. Jenna Flynn scored to make it 10-7, but van der Sloot set up Vivian Sevenich on the power play to cut the deficit to 10-8 with 3:54 left.

Goalie Laura Aarts denied Flynn before Sevenich haled the deficit to 10-9, then after an Aarts save on Maddie Musselman, Bente Rogge converted a power play chance off a Maartje Keuning feed.

The teams traded empty possessions in the final minute before the Dutch called a timeout with nine seconds left, after Aarts (nines saves) shut down Flynn. That set up van der Sloot to win it just before the horn.

Flynn, Jamie Neushul and Gilchrist scored twice each for the U.S. Musselman and Fattal were each just 1-for-4 shooting, and Maggie Steffens didn’t score, capping a difficult tournament in and out of the water for the three-time Olympic gold medalist and all-time leading scorer among female Olympians. Ashleigh Johnson made 11 saves.

Sevenich scored on both of her shots. Rogge had a goal and two assists. The U.S. shut down both Brigitte Sleeking and Simone van der Kraats, who combined for 2-for-9 shooting, but it was to no avail.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

Name*

Email*

2 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

MDS

17 days ago

While the men recovered from a 2 goal deficit in the final quarter to win the Bronze in a shoot-out.

Emilly

17 days ago

sad