Goalkeeper Dan Hackett Notches 14 Saves in USA\u2019s Final Pre-Olympic Contest<\/p>\n
\tMalibu, CA\u2014Coming into last week\u2019s training series with Romania, the U.S. Olympic water polo team didn\u2019t know exactly what to expect. A few factors
\nfigured into this uncertainty. For one, the Romanians, who will not be in the Olympics, had just concluded their season in Europe. They were also coming to Southern California, which might be a little more conducive to vacation than it is to water polo. But the Romanians had other ideas, giving their U.S. counterparts a run for their money during games and practices.
\n\tSaturday (Sept. 2), despite a strong second half performance by their guests, the U.S. outlasted Romania, 11-7 before a sold out crowd at Pepperdine University. The match was the final pre-Olympic contest for Team USA, who kicks off action in Sydney on September 23 with Croatia. And according to assistant coach Monte Nitzkowski, Romania was the perfect tune-up.
\n\t\u201cThey were really great training partners,\u201d said Nitzkowski. \u201cThey came out and gave one hundred percent everyday and made us work hard. Today, they
\nreally gave us a good game. This was just what we needed before tackling Croatia.\u201d
\n\tThe U.S. started its scoring tirade early, scoring four first quarter goals, a shade under its seven-goal pace from Thursday\u2019s 17-10 extravaganza.
\nTeam USA captain Chris Oeding (Newport Beach, CA) notched two of his three goals in that quarter and teammates Wolf Wigo (New York, NY) and Chris
\nHumbert (Lodi, CA) scored one apiece.
\n\tOeding and company outscored Romania, 4-1, in both the first and second quarters, but hit a lull on both sides of the ball in the second half.
\n\tRomania came alive in the third quarter, scoring four unanswered goals over the last 2:46 to narrow the USA\u2019s lead to 11-6.
\n\tA fairly dormant final quarter practically negated the past week of offensive insanity, in which the teams had already combined to score 38 goals in two games. The defensive battle that transpired in the final frame saw Romania toss in the game\u2019s last goal, rounding out the scoring at 11-7.
\n\tDan Hackett (Irvine, CA) was stellar in goal for the U.S., stopping 14 shots on the day. Hackett\u2019s next assailants will hail from Croatia, when the U.S. takes on the world in the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Goalkeeper Dan Hackett Notches 14 Saves in USA\u2019s Final Pre-Olympic Contest Malibu, CA\u2014Coming into last week\u2019s training series with Romania, the U.S. Olympic water polo team didn\u2019t know exactly what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[155,2252,160,477,556,2174,478,1068,480,1199,7457,519,2251,397,1335,3554,157,45,238,62,559],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-assistant-coach","tag-beach","tag-captain","tag-chris-humbert","tag-chris-oeding","tag-croatia","tag-dan-hackett","tag-europe","tag-goalkeeper","tag-malibu","tag-monte-nitzkowski","tag-new-york","tag-newport","tag-pepperdine-university","tag-polo","tag-romania","tag-southern-california","tag-sydney","tag-the-olympics","tag-united-states","tag-wolf-wigo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n