On Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, the American women won against Hungary 14-10 to advance to the gold medal round.
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Bolt won his ninth Olympic medal Friday night, anchoring the Jamaicans’ winning 4×100 relay team in what he has insisted will be his last Olympic race.
Maggie Steffens was the top scorer for the United States in that semifinal with four goals.
Winners of 21 in a row, including its five games in Rio de Janeiro by a combined score of 61-27, the US has met every challenge as the favorite to become the first country to win consecutive gold medals since the tournament was added to the Olympics in 2000. The U.S. will play for bronze, just like the top-ranked American women, who lost in five sets to Serbia on Thursday.
“What we did is really hard to do”, Steffens said. When you have two good teams like this, it’s just a little play here and a little play there.
Before departing for California, Krikorian met with his players and urged them to make the most of their Olympic experience. He had led the United States on a dominant run, capped by their 12-5 demolition of Italy, under tragic circumstances. Italy also is a ideal 5-0 in Rio, winning by a combined score of 51-31.
Krikorian brushed away any talk of winning it all for him and his family, insisting Blake himself would think it was a ludicrous notion, but his players pledged their support for their grieving coach. “When we are in danger she can go out there and do everything for us”.
Less than two minutes later, Maggie Steffens, the captain, scored the first of her team-high four goals, and the USA never relinquished the lead.
But Hungary was unable to slow down the athletic U.S.in the second half.
“The U.S.is the strongest and they have the most and biggest, strongest players in all the Olympic Games”, Hungary coach Attila Biro said.
The teams finished tied in kills (58-58) while the USA led in blocks (16-7) and Italy led in aces (10-5).
Kylie Neushel had three goals for the US, while Rachel Fattal and Mackenzie Fischer contributed two apiece.
“We knew it would be a physical, tough, strong game”, USA center Kami Craig said.
Italy takes home the silver medal for just their second women’s water polo medal.
Earlier, Canada defeated host Brazil 2-1 for the bronze medal.
US opposite Matt Anderson led all scorers with 25 points on a match-high 18 kills, two blocks and five aces. Italy started from behind and never came close to touching the lead in this game which was owned by the American ladies. “This is why we love the sport and dream of being at the highest level”.
Hungary had the win in their sights, but Russia’s pressure told when Anastasia Simanovich scored her first goal of the match with just one second remaining in normal time to draw 12-12 and force penalties. It’s very important to decompress over the next couple of months. At the end of the third quarter the USA led 12-8.
On offense, the US scored twice in the final minute of that first period to take a 4-1 lead and never looked back.
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Bianconi scored two goals in each game against China and Russian Federation to bring her total to 11 in Rio. Italy also is a ideal 5-0 in Rio, winning by a combined score of 51-31.
