CORONADO, California, July 9. THE U.S. Olympic Team for Women's Water Polo shrugged off a last second loss to Australia on Sunday evening and came back with a vengeance taking it to their rival with a 12-6 defeat in front of sold out crowd at the Brian Bent pool on the campus of Coronado High School. The two squads meet up once more on Thursday at Stanford University in the last game for Team USA before they depart for the Olympic Games.
As for this contest it had a familiar start to the last game as San Diego native Moriah van Norman again came out to start the game with a goal to build a 1-0 lead for Team USA. Sarah Mills would answer for Australia tying the score at 1-1 and that would be as close as Australia got all evening. The United States was a determined group as they rattled off three straight goals following the Mills score as Lauren Wenger connected along Jessica Steffens. In addition Natalie Golda put home a five meter penalty drawn by Kami Craig and the USA was in control at 4-1 after the first.
The start of the second was more of the same as Patty Cardenas used a man-up scenario to her advantage finding the net to push the lead to 5-1. Australia countered with a goal less than 40 seconds later but Brittany Hayes buried a shot minutes later to build the lead back to four goals at 6-2. That was the score to start the third quarter when the Aussies drew within 6-3 after a Gemma Beadsworth score. That was short lived as goals by Elsie Windes and Craig followed and the lead was now five goals at 8-3.
Everytime Australia got a goal back the United States seemed to dish out two more. The Stingers got to within 8-4 only to see Brenda Villa take a sweet pass from Hayes and put the shot away and then Craig burrowed her way through two defenders to score and it was 10-4 going to the fourth.
The final stanza saw USA toss in two more scores with Windes hitting on her second tally of the day and Craig drawing another five meter which was cashed in by Heather Petri. Overall the team went 2/2 on penalty shots and was efficient on power plays at 6/11 a welcome improvement from a 3/9 showing on Sunday. Betsey Armstrong was superb in net stopping 13 shots on the evening, while several field players recorded blocks. The two squads meet again at 6pm on Thursday at the Avery Aquatics Center on the campus of Stanford University.
Special thanks to USA Water Polo for contributing this report.