Men’s Water Polo Team Fall to Hungary

(Photo: Jeff Cable, Jeff Cable’s Photography Blog)

Watching the USA Men’s Water Polo Team play Hungary on Saturday, July 31, 2021, it was clear that this was not their best game and that no one on the team would be happy afterwards. This was also a prime example of how possession time does not guarantee a win in this game. Team USA was consistently leading in the amount of time that they had the ball, however, their scoring was far below average; at one point dipping to just 17%. By the end of the game, they had managed just eight goals on 31 attempts.

As a team, five of the players didn’t manage a goal and two of those players didn’t even manage a shot. Alex Bowen and Ben Hallock were each able to get two goals – which constituted half of the goals the Americans would get in the game.

It wasn’t that the Hungarians were far outshooting the Americans or that Team USA’s goalkeeper Alex Wolf was performing badly in net—he was able to stop 10 of the 21 shots that got to him for a 48% save percentage. Many of the American shots were simply not getting on Hungary’s goalkeeper Viktor Nagy. Of the 31 shots that the Americans took, just 16 of them actually reached Nagy and he denied eight of those.

“We definitely didn’t capitalize on our 6-on-5 exclusions, so the extra man was big for us. I think we went 31 percent overall. With a team like Hungary, who are very good shooters, we need to keep pace. The positive thing is that we draw those exclusions, so if we keep trying it, going forward, hopefully we can get that 31 closer to 50 percent,” said Luca Cupido.

Indeed, of the 16 opportunities Team USA had on the man advantage, they were only able to garner five goals. Coupling that with the three goals at even strength of the 15 shots, it came back to hurt them on the scoreboard.

Though Hungary was scoring on the extra player at about the same percentage as Team USA, they got a penalty throw which they got past Owen, and they garnered an overall scoring percentage of 35%.

For the American men, they now sit with two wins and two losses. They have one more game on Monday, August 2, 2021 to finish the preliminary round. They currently sit in fourth place in their group and must take on Greece who sits in first place having won three games and tied one.

The men’s teams finish their preliminary games on Monday and the top four in each group will then move on to the quarter finals, scheduled to take place Wednesday, August 4th. In addition to the USA game against Greece, Group A (the group which the USA is in) also has a game between the Italians and the Hungarians. All four of these teams are currently in position to move on to the quarter finals. The final game in Group A is between Japan and South Africa, neither of which has won a game in the preliminary round.

After winning their first two games against Japan and South Africa, the American men have lost their last two games and are undoubtedly hoping to turn that around against the Greek team.

Note: If you love the photo, be sure to check out more by visiting Jeff Cable’s Photography Blog here.