Courtesy: USA Water Polo
SURGUT, Russia – The USA Women’s National Team moved to 2-0 at the FINA World Cup with a 26-1 win over South Africa today. Team USA has now won their first two games at the tourney by a combined score of 44-3.
Paige Hauschild (Santa Barbara, CA/USC/Santa Barbara 805) was named player of the match following a seven goal outburst while Amanda Longan (Moorpark, CA/USC/Santa Barbara 805) made five saves.
Team USA returns to play tomorrow with a match against Canada at 9am et/6am pt to close out group play. Every match will stream live with replays available on-demand via FINA TV and can be accessed at FINATV.LIVE (subscription required). For more information on the event including the full Team USA roster, click here. For live stats from each match, visit LiveWaterPolo.com.
Hauschild scored the first two goals of the game, foreshadowing the scoring storm that was on the way. Moments later Maggie Steffens (Danville, CA/Stanford/NYAC) would add two straight goals and with less than a minute to play in the quarter, Team USA was ahead 7-0. South Africa broke through with their lone goal of the match with 19 seconds left in the first to make it 7-1 after one.
Team USA turned it up a notch in the second quarter, piling on 10 unanswered goals including two from Hauschild and a pair from Jordan Raney (Manhattan Beach, CA/Stanford/Huntington Beach WPC) and Stephania Haralabidis (Athens, Greece/USC/NYAC). Ahead 17-1 starting the second half, Team USA cruised to the victory delivering nine more goals over the final two quarters to take the 26-1 win.
The United States was near perfect on the advantage going 12/13 on power plays and 1/1 on penalties. South Africa was 0/1 on power plays and did not attempt a penalty.
Scoring – Box Score
USA 26 (7, 10, 4, 5) P. Hauschild 7, K. Gilchrist 4, S. Haralabidis 4, J. Raney 3, M. Fischer 3, M. Steffens 2, J. Neushul 2, A. Williams 1
RSA 1 (1, 0, 0, 0) Z. Smit 1
Saves – USA – A. Longan 5
6×5 – USA – 12/13 – RSA – 0/1
Penalties – USA – 1/1 – RSA – 0/0