The Americans are now guaranteed to medal in all five Olympics that have featured women’s water polo.
Advertisement
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Italy is going back to the Olympic women’s water polo final.
Stanford senior and captain Maggie Steffens turned in a stellar effort on defense, coupled with a team high four goals to pace the attack.
Russian Federation and Hungary will square off in the bronze-medal match, also scheduled for Friday.
The U.S. women’s water polo team beat Hungary on Wednesday to reach the finals at the Rio Games where they will look to become the first women’s squad to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the sport.
“We start great, from the opening of the match”, Filipovic said.
With a tighter defense and precision shooting, Italy’s women edged out Russian Federation in the first semi-final match, winning 12-9.
“Of course United States of America is the best team to beat because they won the last Olympic Games and many tournaments”, he added.
Twelve years ago, Italy scored with two seconds left to defeat the United States 6-5 in a controversial semifinal game. “Just happy to go out there and kind of grind through some of that physicality and try to play as clean of water polo as we could”. But it’s headed back to the final after Arianna Garibotti scored five goals and Giulia Gorlero made nine saves in the country’s second victory over Russian Federation in Rio.
“The final is a dream”, Italy coach Fabio Conti said.
Steffens, the most valuable player of the London Games, wouldn’t want it any other way.
“It’s going to be a physical battle”, Bianconi said through a translator, “so we need to be very, very focused and do exactly what we have worked on our whole season”.
Hungary couldn’t close to more than three goals after that as Stanford graduate Kiley Neushul added two second-half scores.
After Russia pulled within two with 3:17 left, Garibotti scored a power-play goal to make it 10-7.
Wednesday was the first game goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson saved less than 60 percent of shots her way, but she still came away with eight saves, including four on six shots from beyond five meters.
Those 44 seconds are the only time the USA has trailed at all during the Rio Games, and it came in the first quarter with 3:59 when Hungary took a 2-1 lead.
Advertisement
“Sometimes when the moment is risky she can do anything”, Conti said.
