The USA Men’s Senior National Team suffered their first loss at the FINA World Cup falling to Serbia 11-9. Tied late in the match at 8-8, Serbia’s Gavril Subotic scored three straight goals in the remaining moments to push Serbia ahead for the win. Bret Bonanni (Huntington Beach, CA/Stanford/Stanford) scored five goals to lead the offense while McQuin Baron (North Tustin, CA/USC/Regency) posted 14 saves in net. With the loss Team USA takes second in group play and will meet Australia on Friday in the quarterfinal round at 12:40am pst. A live webcast is available of all matches courtesy of FINA TV and can be accessed by clicking here. To visit the official tournament website, click here.
Serbia struck first in this match with a 2-0 lead after the first period. The United States battled back in the second outscoring Serbia 4-1 to take a 4-3 lead at halftime. The see-saw match continued with Serbia outscoring the United States in the third quarter 3-1 to retake the lead at 6-5. Serbia went ahead 7-5 in the fourth before Bonanni tied the match with two straight goals. Serbia went ahead 8-7 and Team USA’s Michael Rosenthal (Miami, FL/USC/NYAC) connected to tie the game at 8-8. That set the stage for Subotic’s scoring spree all taking place in the final 2:24 left in the match. Team USA would muster one final goal but it wouldn’t factor in the decision as Serbia took the match 11-9.
The United States went 1/8 on power plays while Serbia went 7/9 on power plays.
Scoring
USA 9 (0, 4, 1, 4) B. Bonanni 5, M. Rosenthal 1, L. Cupido 1, J. Smith 1, J. Mann 1
SRB 11 (2, 1, 3, 5)
Saves – USA – M. Baron 14
6×5 – USA – 1/8 – SRB 7/9
Penalties – USA – 0/0 – SRB 0/0
Water Polo News / Swimming News courtesy of USA Water Polo.
