US women play Hungary in the preliminary water polo match on Saturday. Led by Ashleigh Johnson’s six saves, the Americans carried a shutout into the fourth quarter. It also was the most goals allowed by Greece, which had already secured a spot in the quarterfinals beginning Tuesday at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. It was the last part that annoyed him a bit.
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Kiley Neushul, Makenzie Fischer, Kaleigh Gilchrist and Maggie Steffens scored two goals for Team USA.
“I’m happy because we’ve done our job”, Australia coach Elvis Fatovic said. “But I know that we gave it our all and I look forward to the bright future of this young team”. “I thought we relaxed”. A win would also make Venus the first tennis player to have Olympic gold medals in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
BILES STUMBLES: Simone Biles is no longer Rio de Janeiro’s juggernaut.
“We got a little lazy and we know in the next two games we’ve got to be sharp for a full four quarters otherwise we’re not going to get the job done”.
The Australians went down 11-13 and their medal hopes were all but dashed.
Russia’s women advanced with a 12-10 win over Spain and will next face Italy, who reached the last four with a 12-7 victory over China.
“I can’t say enough about the Brazilian fans, though”.
“I’m very proud of the boys today”, Howden said. “These were some of the best fans I’ve ever seen”.
Team USA, seeking to defend its gold medal at the 2012 London Games, will face the victor of the Australia-Hungary match in the semifinals at 11:20 a.m. ET Wednesday.
Hungary trailed Australia 5-3 at halftime, and Orsolya Kaso replaced Edina Gangl in goal at the start of the second half.
Bronwen Knox put Australia up 8-6 with 5:53 remaining in the 4th quarter, but Hungary didn’t let up. Hungary connected twice in the last minute of the half on goals from Dora Czigany and Ildiko Toth. “We had left Edina alone for too much of the match, so we needed to swap things around and be stronger without the ball”.
She stopped shots ranging to her left, to her right, even straight up, grabbing high lob shots effortlessly out of the air with one hand.
The United States and Italy are the only women’s teams yet to lose in the tournament but it was the USA lineup that produced the most dominant display on Monday as they lived up to their status as gold medal favourites.
Saturday’s game against Hungary was closer than the match against China.
“Good teams are always going to fight back when they’re down and that’s exactly what they did, and they ended up putting away their opportunities, levelled it and won the game”.
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Australia bounced back nicely from its 10-8 loss to Serbia on Friday, but it will need some help to advance to the next round. Ekaterina Prokofyeva scored four times and Elvina Karimova had a big goal in the fourth period of Russia’s second victory in Rio.
