Olympic Women’s Water Polo: Maddie Musselman Helps U.S. Pound France

Photo Courtesy: Andrea Staccioli / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Olympic Women’s Water Polo: Maddie Musselman Helps U.S. Pound France

Maddie Musselman scored four goals and added an assist as the U.S. dominated France, 17-5, in group play of the Olympic women’s water polo tournament Friday.

The win makes the U.S. 3-1 in group play and books a quarterfinal spot, giving them an extra off day.

Musselman added an assist. The U.S. led 7-3 at half and outscored France 10-2 after the break. Ashleigh Johnson made 10 saves, and a dogged defense held France to 5-for-29 (17 percent) shooting.

Jenna Flynn tallied a hat trick. Maggie Steffens paired a goal with five assists. Rachel Fattal and Ryann Neushul scored twice each.

Most of the games in Round 4 of the tournament proved lopsided. The closest was a 10-7 affair won by Australia over Canada behind hat tricks from Bronte Halligan and Alice Williams. Halligan had two of the three Australia assists. Williams required 10 shots to get her hat trick. Gabriella Palm made six saves.

Emma Wright paced Canada with three goals. Jessica Gaudreault turned aside 11 shots in net.

Valeria Palmieri scored four goals to lead Italy to a 12-8 win over Greece. Dafne Bettini scored two goals and two assists, and Roberta Bianconi, Guilia Viacava and Claudia Marletta scored twice apiece. Caterina Banchelli made eight saves in goal.

Nicoleta Eleftheriadou and Vasiliki Plevritou scored three times each for Greece.

Hungary trailed after one quarter but eventually pulled away from China, 17-11, behind seven goals on nine shots from Rita Keszthelyi.

Dorottya Szilagyi scored three goals to go with three assists. Vanda Valyi had two goals and three helpers. Kamilla Farago and Krisztina Garda scored twice apiece.

Yiwen Lu and Zewen Deng scored three goals each for China.

The quarterfinals begin on Aug. 6. Because there are 10 teams in the women’s tournament, as opposed to 12 for the men, each team gets one day off in the group stage. Quarterfinals will be set after the last round of games.

The U.S. will finish no worse than second in Group B. Spain, which beat the U.S., can win the group by defeating Italy on Sunday.

Australia can win Group A if it beats Hungary on Saturday.

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Jim Griffin

4 months ago

Tell NBC to keep their closed captioning out of the way of the scores, times, etc.