Editorial Coverage Sponsored By FINIS
By Dan.D’Addona
With perhaps the most daunting opening matchup of the tournament, the U.S. men’s water polo team faced the defending Olympic champions.
But the Americans hung with Croatia, and despite taking a 7-5 loss, the team showed it could hang with the world’s best as it opened the 2016 Olympics on Saturday in Rio de Janeiro.
The U.S. started strong, taking a 1-0 lead on a goal by Tony Azevedo with 4:49 to go in the first quarter. It was the start of a pattern that lasted nearly three quarters with the U.S. scoring to take the lead and Croatia returning fire to tie the match, which was tied 1-1, 2- 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 before Croatia scored two in a row on goals from Luka Bukic and Andelo Setka.
Setka and Maro Jokovic added fourth quarter goals for a three-goal lead before Alex Roelse scored for the Americans, who could get no closer.
The rest of the games were just a close:
Serbia 13, Hungary 13
Two of the biggest powers in the sport squared off in the first game of the tournament and played to a stunning 13-13 tie.
Hungary led by four goals in the fourth quarter before Serbia, the 2015 world champions, scored four late goals, including the last one, scored by Filip Filipovic with four seconds remaining in the game to force the tie.
Filipovic scored four goals for Serbia, while Norbert Hosnyanszky had three for Hungary.
Italy 9, Spain 8
Christian Presciutti scored with 2:10 remaining in the fourth quarter to give Italy a 9-8 win over Spain in the first game of pool play. It was Presciutti’s third goal of the match and Italy’s third consecutive goal to earn the comeback win.
Andrea Fondelli and Pietro Figlioli added late goals in the fourth quarter. Guillermo Molina and Albert Espanol each scored twice for Spain.
Greece 8, Japan 7
Greece overcame being shut out 4-0 in the third quarter to edge Japan 8-7. Emmanouil Mylonakis scored with 30 seconds remaining in the match to seal the comeback victory for Greece.
Angelos Vlachopoulos scored three goals to lead Greece.
Montenegro 7, France 4
Montenegro surged to a 5-0 halftime lead against France and was able to hang on for a 7-4 victory. Goalie Milos Scepanovic made eight saves and the French misfired on 13 shots before halftime.
In the second half, France finally got on the board and pulled within two goals with a pair of scores 30 seconds apart from Ugo Crousillat and Mehdi Marzouki before Darko Brguljian scored with 35 seconds to go to push the Montenegro lead back to three goals.
Radovic Aleksander scored three goals to lead Montenegro, which will face Croatia on Monday.
Brazil 8, Australia 7
On the final game of the first day of pool play, host Brazil hung on to edge Australia 8-7.
Brazil led early and never relinquished that lead. But after Australia cut the lead to one, Brazil goalie Slobodan Soro made a save as time expired to seal the victory for the host team.
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