Yokohama, Japan – May 15 – Luca Cupido (Newport Beach, CA/California/Newport) scored a goal with two seconds left to lift the USA Men’s National Team to a gold medal at the FINA Men’s Intercontinental Tournament and a 10-9 win over Australia. Cupido andJosh Samuels (Villa Park, CA/UCLA/NYAC) scored three goals each with Merrill Moses(Palos Verdes, CA/Pepperdine/NYAC) adding eight saves in net. Tony Azevedo (Long Beach, CA/Stanford/NYAC) scored two goals and was named FINA Men’s Intercontinental Tournament MVP. Team USA finishes the tournament with a 6-0 record earning two wins over Australia in addition to victories against Japan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and China. All the competing teams except Kazakhstan qualified for the upcoming FINA World League Super Final this June in China.
Next up for the USA Men’s National Team is a two game series with Australia in Southern California. The two will play Friday evening at 7pm in Claremont, CA at Pomona-Pitzer’s Haldeman Pool and on Sunday at 1pm in Los Angeles, CA at USC’s Uytengsu Aquatic Center. Tickets to both matches are on sale and can be purchased by clicking here. Sunday’s match will also air live on NBC Sports Network.
(Report via FINA.org)
A heartstopping closing few moments in the final saw Australia blow their chance of glory and USA grab a winning goal with 2 seconds left.
With the match all-square deep in the final minute, Australia intercepted a USA attack and broke clear, only to miss a glorious opening. And in the Americans’ resulting attack, Luca Cupido fired in a trademark long-range rocket to bring the crowd to its feet.
The Americans had beaten the Aussies 8-6 in a tense opening match of the tournament, on Tuesday, and the final was another close-fought, often tetchy contest. Aidan Roach scored 16 seconds before the interval to reduce Australia’s deficit to 4-5 at the turnaround.
USA goalie Merrill Moses made what proved to be three vital stops at the start of third period, but the Aussies led from midway through the third quarter, to start the final eight minutes 8-7 to the good. James Stanton then pulled off some top stops in the Aussie goal, before the prolific Bret Bonanni levelled the game.
John Cotterill scored his third to put the Aussies 9-8 ahead with about 3 minutes to go. Then Cupido squared the contest with the first of his late missiles, with 90 seconds to go, and sealed the honours with his second.
USA coach Dejan Udovicic reckoned there is even more to come from his emerging stars, who won all six of their matches this week. “This game was a much higher intensity than our first one with them. As a very young team, it is very important for us to keep winning. We deserved that last last goal because we were better than our opponents, and we won all our games,” said Udovicic.
“We’re the youngest team in the world, so have a lot of room to improve. We need to work hard, and I think that we can still perform much better. Of course, everyone is preparing for the Olympic Games, but we have shown our potential this week.”
Team USA went 4/10 on power plays and 0/1 on penalties while Australia was 4/8 on power plays and did not attempt a penalty shot.
Scoring
USA 10 (3, 2, 2, 3) L. Cupido 3, J. Samuels 3, T. Azevedo 2, B. Bonanni 2
AUS 9 (3, 1, 4, 1)
Saves – USA – M. Moses 8
6×5 – USA 4/10 – AUS – 4/8
Penalties – USA – 0/1 AUS – 0/0
Swimming news courtesy of USA Water Polo.