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USA Women Down Russia 15-7 At UCLA For Second Straight Win

Los Angeles, CA – July 24 – UCLA Bruins past, present, and future ruled the pool in game two of a three game series between the U.S. Olympic Women’s Water Polo Team and Russia at UCLA’s Spieker Aquatics Complex. Bruin commit Maddie Musselman (Newport Beach, CA/Corona del Mar HS/CdM Aquatics) paced the offense with four goals, current UCLA student Rachel Fattal (Seal Beach, CA/UCLA/SOCAL) added two and recent grad Sami Hill (Santa Barbara, CA/UCLA/NYAC) posted ten saves in net. The two teams close out their three game set at a sold out Stanford University on Wednesday evening at 7pm pt. Live coverage of the match will start at 6:45pm pt atFacebook.com/USAWP.

On the heels of a 16-5 win in the series opening match in San Diego, things looked to be trending the same way in the opening moments of today’s match as Makenzie Fischer (Laguna Beach, CA/Laguna Beach HS/SET) scored the first goal of the game a little over five minutes into the period. Unlike Thursday night, Russia had an immediate response scoring back to back goals to go in front 2-1 with 2:43 to play. It marked their first lead in the series and only one the afternoon. Kaleigh Gilchrist (Newport Beach, CA/USC/NYAC) scored the next two for Team USA and Fattal added her first to put the United States in the lead 4-2 after the first quarter.

The scoring continued in the second quarter as Kiley Neushul (Goleta, CA/Stanford/Santa Barbara) scored two of the next four goals for a 7-3 lead going into halftime. After missing two shots in close Kami Craig (Santa Barbara, CA/USC/NYAC) found redemption with a powerful backhand to give the United States an 8-3 lead with 5:53 to play in the quarter. Neushul followed with her third, then came a goal from Bruin alum KK Clark (Menlo Park, CA/UCLA/NYAC) followed by the first of the day from Musselman for an 11-3 lead after three periods.

Musselman kicked off the fourth period with her second goal less than thirty seconds in and then put a cap on the match some five minutes later with her fourth and final tally. In between came two Russian goals that wouldn’t factor in the decision as Team USA pulled away for the 15-7 win.

The United States went 6/9 on power plays and 2/3 on penalty shots while Russia was 1/6 on power plays and 1/1 on penalty shots.

Scoring
USA 15 (4, 3, 4, 4) M. Musselman 4, K. Neushul 3, R. Fattal 2, K. Gilchrist 2, M. Seidemann 1, K. Clark 1, M. Fischer 1, K. Craig 1
RUS 7 (2, 1, 0, 4) N. Glyzina 2, E. Prokofyeva 1, M. Borisova 1, E. Lisunova 1, A. Timofeeva 1, A. Grieva 1
Saves – USA – S. Hill – 10
6×5 – USA – 6/9 – RUS – 1/6
Penalties – USA – 2/3 – RUS – 1/1

Swimming news courtesy of USA Water Polo.

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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