Team USA Men’s Water Polo Beats Australia, 6-4

MORAGA, California, June 7. STILL riding the high of a victory against world number one Croatia last weekend Team USA kept it going with an end-to-end win over visiting Australia 6-4 at the sold-out Soda Aquatic Center on the campus of Campolindo High School in Moraga, Calif.

Unlike their last two games Team USA got the offense working quickly as Team Captain Tony Azevedo used a man-up scenario to score the first goal and give an early lead at 1-0 just two minutes and twenty seconds in the game. They would add to that as Ryan Bailey drew a five meter penalty to which Azevedo cashed in and just like that it was 2-0 USA.

There was more where that came from in the second quarter when Jeff Powers glided through the middle taking a dish from Azevedo to beat the Australia goalkeeper James Stanton to give Team USA a 3-0 advantage. With 2:20 left in the second quarter USA capped their scoring for the first half as John Mann juked a defender, quickly put on the breaks in front of the net and lobbed home a shot to push things to 4-0.

The start of third saw Australia mount their rally as the USA defense was caught off guard. The Aussies would do all the scoring in the third period and tallied three straight scores to draw within one at 4-3 with a little over a minute remaining in the period. In the fourth quarter the defense returned for Team USA as did the offense with Jesse Smith connecting from downtown to build the lead to 5-3 less than a minute into the quarter. From there the teams jockeyed back and forth with both defense doing the job until 2:42 left in the game when Azevedo would cap his scoring with a laser beam into the left corner from about five meters out. That rebuilt the lead to a comfortable margin at 6-3 and USA would go on for the 6-4 victory.

Merrill Moses was solid in net throughout for Team USA posting six saves throughout. The game was a homecoming for Moraga resident and Campolindo graduate Peter Varellas who was honored prior to the game. The team is next in action on Sunday at 4pm at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California. Tickets for the game are still available and will be sold at the door only.

Special thanks to USA Water Polo for contributing this report.

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