USA Women Head to Gold Medal Game in Water Polo

Aug 5, 2021

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

There are probably many who were expecting the USA Women’s Water Polo Team to get to the gold medal game in Tokyo. The women on the team are not among them. They truly take each game as it comes, and in order to reach that final game, they first had to eliminate the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) women’s team. The two teams had already met in competition during the preliminary round, a game in which Team USA won 18-5.

As the game got underway, it was clear that the ROC women were coming out strong and hard and it wasn’t long before they were on the scoreboard with their first goal of the game at 7:11 of the first quarter. Team USA responded, when Rachel Fattal scored on an extra player shot. The Americans then took the lead at 5:43 from a power play goal by captain Maggie Steffens. The Russians were not phased and tied things up at 4:45 before taking the lead at 3:03 and maintaining the 3-2 lead through the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter started a little slower, with posts and goalkeepers getting in the way of attempts for both teams through almost the first half of the quarter. At 4:24, tbe ROC team got a little breathing room, when they scored their fourth goal of the game. A minute later they were leading by two goals.

Despite being down by two goals, there was no panic on the part of the Americans, who just kept working. They cut the lead in half ten seconds after the Russians got their fifth, when Stephania Haralabidis put home a penalty shot.

It looked like the Russians were pulling away, when they kept going up two goals, only to find the Americans cutting that lead in half—always working their way back.

“I think the experience really helps. Like we go down and, I mean, we probably weren’t up until, I don’t even know when, later in the game. It’s being able to look at each other and know that it’s going to be okay. We’re going to keep pushing. We’re going to keep working and, you know, things weren’t really going great for us in the beginning. And to know that we’re going to get our looks, we’re going to get our opportunities and we’re going to eventually put them away as long as we keep working, keep pushing and just the faith that you have in each other is awesome and you get that every day from the grind,” said Fattal.

And then with one second remaining in the second period, Melissa Seidemann gave Team USA an important goal to go into the halftime break, with a score of 7-6 in favor of the Russians.

As the third quarter got underway, it was clear that the women playing for the United States had refocused and were back on their game and taking no prisoners. Steffens tied the game at 7:19. The Russians once again took the lead at 6:46 with an extra player shot, but that was the last time they lead in the game. Team USA would tie the game at eight goals each at 6:22 and then go on to add three more goals before the quarter was done as opposed to the one additional goal from the Russian team.

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

Russia opened up the scoring in the fourth quarter, managing to tie the game at 11 goals at 5:30 of the quarter. However, the Americans kept playing as they had and went on to add four more goals in the last 5:05 of the game.

Maddie Musselman, who had already scored one goal in the second and two goals in the third, went on to add two more as part of those four goals Team USA scored in the fourth quarter. She lead the team in goals, with five, in the game.

“Something that’s really special about Maddie is she can really do it all. A lot of teams think of her as a sharpshooter, as do we. She clearly was that today, which we needed, but she’s one of our best defenders. She’s the one getting lots of fields, lots of blocks. She can drive. She draws a lot of attention, and she is somebody that is huge for our team and you saw she got some big goals for us today, some big stops, really lit a fire as a team that we needed. All I’ll say is I’m very grateful that she’s my teammate, ‘cause she’s special,” said Alys Williams.

When the clock ticked down Team USA was heading toward the Gold Medal game where they will take on the team from Spain on Saturday, August 7th, at 4:30pm JST after the Russians have played for the bronze, competing against the Hungarians at 1:40pm JST.