2024 Olympic Water Polo: Australia Upsets Serbia, Greece v. Montenegro Ends in Shootout

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• Water Polo: July 27 – August 11, 2024
•  Paris Aquatic Centre/La Défense Arena — Paris, France
• Meet Central
• Full Water Polo Match Schedule

Men’s preliminary action continued today with several matches, including a repeat of the 2023 World Championships semi-finals match-up between Spain and Hungary. 

Group B, Game 7: Australia 8, Serbia 3

After losing to Spain two days ago, Australia came up with a huge victory over the defending Olympic Champions Serbia. The game featured highly defensive play from the Aussies, who managed to hold the Serbians to only 3 points, the lowest score of the tournament thus far in any match. Australia jumped to the early lead with Luke Pavillard earning the team’s first goal off of a penalty on Petar Jaksic, bringing the score to 1-0. The score remained there until late in the second period when Matthew Byrnes netted a second goal for Australia. From there, the Australians were unstoppable on offense, scoring an additional 4 unanswered points in rapid-fire fashion. Despite the Serbians attempting to gain an advantage, they couldn’t put anything together until there was less than a minute left in the half with Dusan Mandic netting a free throw, ending the half with a score of 6-1.

The third period started with a series of turnovers on both sides, with the teams exchanging the ball on several occasions. Then, Pallivard threw another ball into the net for the Aussies, creating a 7-1 lead to end the third period. In the fourth period, a relaxed Australian team held down the fort, only allowing two Serbian goals while adding another of their own. In the end, the game finished with a score of 8-3 in favor of Australia. 

Group A, Game 8: Italy 14, Croatia 11

Italy established the early lead in this matchup, scoring straight off of the sprint with Gonzalo Echenique netting a ball off of an exclusion on Josip Vrlic. With the score at 1-0, Croatia fired back with Maro Jokovic netting a goal of his own to tie the score at 1-1. Soon afterwards, Italy tied the game as Lorenzo Bruni scored a goal of his own, but was met with an immediate rebuttal from Croatia’s Konstantin Kharkov. For the rest of the period, the teams dueled it out, ultimately ending in a 4-3 score in favor of Croatia. A similar story followed in the second period, with both teams exchanging rapid fire goals in the first few minutes of the period. Though Croatia looked like they might pull ahead, leading 6-5 with a minute left, Francesco di Fulvio hit a huge action shot goal to tie the game up to end the half.

Di Fulvio’s goal seemed to ignite a fire within the Italian offense, as the team opened the third period with 3 unanswered goals, pulling out to a 9-6 lead. After a timeout with 5:26 left in the half, Croatia finally executed on their offense, putting together their first goal of the half. Though it seemed like Croatia was putting things together, the Italians quickly ended those hopes, continuing to maintain their lead by responding to every Croatian point. Eventually, the third period ended in a score of 12-9. Italy seemingly put the nail in the coffin with an extra player goal from di Fulvio early in the fourth quarter, building out a 14-9 lead. Despite the deficit though, the Croatian team never relented, scoring two last minute goals but ultimately coming up short by a score of 14-11. 

Group B, Game 9: France 14, Japan 13

The French team held it together in one of the closest games of the whole tournament so far, taking down Japan by one point. Though the French team struck first with Michael Alexandre Bodegas scoring on an action shot only 45 seconds into the game, Japan quickly responded to tie the game up 1-1 less than a minute later. From there, Japan gained the lead with an action shot goal from Seiya Adachi, leading 2-1. That lead was quickly relinquished as France fought back and scored again to tie. The trend continued, with the first period ending in a score of 4-4. It looked like Japan might pull ahead early in the second period as the team fired off two goals within the first minute, but France continued to rebuke, narrowing the lead to 6-5 less than a minute later. Through the next 4 minutes, highly defensive play occurred with France eventually netting one in with 2:57 left in the period for a 6-6 tie. It was at that point that Romain Marion Vernoux hit a huge action shot goal, giving the French a 7-6 lead heading into the half.

The second half opened relatively quietly and quickly turned into a fierce battle as the two teams continued to match each other goal for goal. At the end of the period, France maintained its 1 point lead, holding a score of 10-9 over Japan. At the beginning of the fourth period, the French team finally pulled away from Japan, scoring 3 unanswered goals in a row to lead by a score of 13-9 with 5 minutes left to play. Japan made every effort to erase that lead, outsourcing France by 4 goals over the last 4:30 of play. However, the French team managed to fend them off defensively, leading to a 14-13 victory.

Group A, Game 10: USA 14, Romania 8

The USA held control over this game from start to finish. Despite an early push from Romania that saw the team quickly rack up 3 points, the Americans responded to every goal, with Johnny Hooper scoring the final goal of the quarter on a big action shot to tie the game at 3-3. Hooper’s goal set off a series of successful shots for the Americans early in the second quarter. Hannes Daube scored the first point off of an exclusion on Francesco Iudean, then Ryder Dodd and Max Irving racked up 2 more points to give the USA a 6-3 lead. Romania attempted to make a late push in the period, but they were met with a strong US defensive push, with the US men stealing the ball multiple times to maintain their lead. 

After the half, the US continued to rack up points, with Daube and Irving each scoring an additional goal. With 4:44 left in the third period, the US held an 8-3 lead, which was then extended to a 9-3 lead via a goal from Ben Hallock. Romania finally got their first goal of the half with 1:43 left to play in the 3rd period as Vlad-Luca Georgescu hit a shot off an exclusion on Irving. Daube then added another goal to his tally to bring the Americans to a 10-4 lead. With the game seemingly sealed, the US let up in the 4th period, but Romania took advantage of the relief narrowing the US lead to 4 with under 2 minutes to play. However, Bowen put a ribbon on the US victory by scoring two goals in the final minute of the game, ending the match with a score of 14-8 in favor of the US. 

Group A, Game 11: Greece 17, Montenegro 16

Greece defeated Montenegro in a shootout-style finale to pick up a huge win. Through the first period, Montenegro got to the early lead, holding a score of 4-2. Despite the Montenegro offense continuing to extend their lead in the second period, the Greek players were unfazed and matched them goal-for-goal. At the end of the half, Montenegro couldn’t grow their lead by any additional points as the score stood at 7-5. In a highly defensive third period, the Greeks held Montenegro to only 2 points, finally making up some ground by scoring 3 points of their own to make it a 1 point game. With the score at 11-11 and less than 30 seconds left to play, Greece’s Angelos Vlachopoulos netted a huge goal for the 12-11 lead, seemingly securing the game for Greece. However, with less than 2 seconds left to play, Vasilije Radovic took full advantage of an exclusion on Greece’s Dimitrios Skoumpakis, scoring a game-tying goal. 

With the score deadlocked at 12-12, the match moved into a winner-take-all penalty shoot out. On the first shot, Montenegro’s Bogdan Durdic hit his shot off of the post, leaving Konstantinos Genidounias to score Greece the 1-0 advantage. Stefan Vidovic then hit the next goal for Montenegro, which was matched by Greece’s Fountoulis. With the remaining athletes all hitting their shots and the score sitting at 4-4, Greece had one more opportunity to score. Taking the final shot of the game, Stylianos Argyropoulos Kanakakis dropped the game-winning goal to take Greece to a 5-4 lead in the shoot-out and a 17-16 overall victory,

Group B, Game 12: Spain 10, Hungary 7 

In a rematch of the 2023 World Championship semi-finals, Spain took an early lead over Hungary and never looked back en route to a 10-7 victory. In the first quarter, Spain got its first points on the board via goals from Alberto Munarriz Egana and Bernat Sanahuja. Though Daniel Angyal scored a goal for Hungary with 3 seconds left in the period for Hungary, Spain held a 2-1 lead. Early in the second period, both teams were evenly matched with both sides exchanging shots and steals with one another, but neither got a ball into the net. Almost halfway through the period, Hungary finally netted a ball with Vince Pal Vigvari tying the score at 2-2. 30 seconds later, Sergi Cabanas Pegado followed suit for Spain to bring back a 3-2 lead. Though Hungary tied it up again, a goal from Marc Larumbre Gonfaus with 1 second left in the half resulted in a 4-3 lead for Spain.

After the half, Spain quickly reestablished a 2 point lead with a goal from Alberto Munarriz Egana to bring the score to 5-3. Angyal narrowed the score down to 1 point again, but then Spain quickly struck back with another score. This trend continued through the end of the period, resulting in a 8-6 lead for Spain. The Spanish team continued to score early into the 4th, building up a 10-7 lead. Despite the Hungarians attempting to score several times in the closing minutes of the game, the Spanish were relentless on defense, blocking every attempt.