LOS ALAMITOS, California, July 5. DESPITE staging a late fourth quarter rally the USA Men's Senior National Team fell short to Montenegro 12-11 in the last of three game series. The match played in front of a patriotic home crowd at the USA Water Polo National Training Center in Los Alamitos, CA saw the United States come back from a three goal deficit in the forth to have a chance to tie in the waning seconds but Montenegro delivered a stop to preserve the victory.<\/p>\n
Team USA got out to a solid start with a score from Ryan Bailey (Long Beach, CA\/Newport WPF) to post a 1-0 lead. Montenegro answered to tie the match and they then took the lead at 2-1 before the United States answered with a Jeff Powers (San Luis Obispo, CA\/Newport WPF) to even the match at 2-2. The see-saw battle continued into the second quarter when Peter Varellas (Moraga, CA\/Olympic Club) tacked on two scores and Jeff Tyrell (Granite Bay, CA\/NYAC) and Tony Azevedo (Long Beach, CA\/NYAC) added scores to allow the United States to keep pace. Montenegro continued their offensive efforts and kept a one goal lead going into intermission at 7-6.<\/p>\n
The second half was more of the same for the Montenegro offense as they were able to keep the United States at bay. Team USA would continue to close within a goal only to be pushed back out to two scores repeatedly. Azevedo and Bailey found the cage in the third period and it was 10-8 going to the fourth. In the final frame Jesse Smith (Coronado, CA\/NYAC) scored the first goal for a 10-9 game. Then Montenegro built a 12-9 lead before the United States started their comeback.<\/p>\n
Azevedo scored again along with Smith which set up the United States trailing by just one going into the final minute. A lost possession by Montenegro turned into an opportunity for Team USA but a late shot went high of the cage and Montenegro hung on for the win. Merrill Moses (Palos Verdes, CA\/NYAC) went the distance in net tallying 8 saves. <\/p>\n
The match will air on Versus this Thursday at 7pm est\/4pm pst. Visit Versus.com to locate the channel on your cable provider. <\/p>\n
Scoring<\/p>\n
USA 11 (3, 3, 2, 3) T. Azevedo 3, R. Bailey 2, J. Smith 2, P. Varellas 2, J. Powers 1, J. Tyrell 1
\nMNE 12 (4, 3, 3, 2) A. Ivovic 5, D. Brguljan 3, B. Zlokovic 2, V. Pauoxic 1, N. Janovic 1<\/p>\n
Saves \u2013 USA \u2013 M. Moses 8 \u2013 MNE \u2013 Z. Radic 4<\/p>\n
The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine<\/i>. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World<\/i> offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World<\/i> reserves the right to choose what material is posted.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ALAMITOS, California, July 5. DESPITE staging a late fourth quarter rally the USA Men's Senior National Team fell short to Montenegro 12-11 in the last of three game series.<\/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":[12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water-polo","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n