The U.S. men’s water polo team, played one excellent half against a skilled Spanish side which, unfortunately for the U.S. played two good halves, finishing with a heartbreaking 8–7 loss.
Spain came out smoking, rifling shot at U.S. keeper Merrill Moses who has been the Linchpin of the U.S. defense in previous games. This time the U.S. netminder started slowly, letting in three goals in the first period and two more in the second.
The U.S. offense couldn’t penetrate Spain’s Inaki Aguilar; helped by the crossbar the Spanish keeper kept USA off the board until the final minute of the first, and only one more in the second. Spain took a 5–2 lead into the locker room at halftime.
A different U.S. squad emerged for the second period. Merrill Moses found his form and began batting down everything Spain sent at him, and the offense keyed off of that.
The U.S. opened the scoring when captain Tony Azevedo rifled one from the 5-meter line. Then Adam Wright scored on a great U.S. passing play. Wright snuck behind his defender from the left side of the net; Jesse Smith found him, and Wright fired from two meters. Aguilar had no chance.
Spain got one back when Ivan Perez got free at two meters, making the score 6–4 Spain after three.
Jeff Powers scored again for the U.S. with a blazing seven-meter skip shot. Spain got that one back with a long-range goal of its own, then 20 seconds later Layne Beaubien made it 8–6 Spain with a four-meter skip shot from the left side.
Spain got a power play and Moses made a pair of beautiful saves, first on a 5-meter blast by Guilermo Molina, then an even more amazing stop on I who collected the rebound and fired from within two meters.
The U.S. defense continued to hold off the Spanish attack, coming out past five meters to challenge and double-teaming at two meters, but at the far end, Spain’s defense was even better; the U.S. attackers couldn’t even reach the five-meter line, and took impossibly long shots rather than run out the shot clock.
Shea Buckner hit the post with the one good shot the U.S. took in the final five minutes. Spain earned an exclusion on its next possession, and Alberto Espanol rocketed a shot off the woodwork just as the man advantage ended.
Spain’s Felipe Perrone corralled the rebound and fired a second shot which hit the crossbar, but bounced forward into Moses’s arm and back into the net giving Spain an 8–6 lead with only 43 seconds left.
The U.S. was faced with the near-impossible task of scoring two goals in 43 seconds, when Spain would have up to thirty seconds of possession, but the U.S. went after it.
Once again the Spanish defense force the U.S. to shoot from far too far, but the U.S. caught a lucky break and grabbed the rebound, then sent an alley-oop in to Ryan Bailey who scored the tip-ion from two meters.
Unfortunately all this took too long, and Spain just swam around for the final 20 seconds and took the 8–7 win.
The U.S. will play a placement match for a non-medal position later in the week.
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