Day three of the FINA World League Super Final ended with a loss to Hungary for Team USA. Josh Samuels (Villa Park, CA/UCLA/NYAC) led the scoring with four goals, while Jon Sibley (Lafayette, CA/California/Lamorinda) made his first appearance in net. Tomorrow’s game against Montenegro will be streamed live at 3:30 am PT and can be accessed by clicking here (Dubai TV).
Hungary started the match with two goals and Alex Bowen (Santee, CA/Stanford/Stanford) responded with the first goal for Team USA. Hungary had another scoring opportunity and ended the first quarter, 1-3. During the second quarter, Bret Bonanni (Huntington Beach, CA/Stanford/Stanford) and Samuels each got a goal in, while Hungary established a strong lead. Team USA ended the first half trailing, 3-7.
Samuels was the lone scorer for Team USA during the third quarter, adding two more, but Hungary tallied 5 goals, bringing the score to 5-12. John Mann (Newport Beach, CA/California/NYAC) scored on a power play, minutes before Jackson Kimbell (Long Beach, CA/Stanford/Newport WPC) made his scoring debut of this series. Samuels added his fourth and final goal and Bonanni was the last to score for Team USA. Hungary scored four goals in the fourth quarter and finished the game on top, 16-9.
Dejan Udovicic — USA Head Coach:
“Generally we had a good game. I am satisfied with the effort and motivation. We made some naive mistakes and turnovers.”
On the improvement from the day before: “It’s normal to go up and down, especially when you play games back to back. Playing at this level each day is good for team development. We will take everything we can from this.”
Josh Samuels:
“We started a little slow. But attacked harder towards the end. I still need to get a little bit more used to European players, which playing in Montenegro has helped with. As a team we just need to always start strong.”
14:30, Group B, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 9 HUNGARY 16
Quarters: 1-3, 2-4, 2-5, 4-4
Referees: Filippo Gomez (ITA), Adrian Alexandrescu (ROU)
Extra Man: USA 4/11, HUN 5/9
Pens: HUN 1/1
Teams:
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: McQuin Baron, Nick Bell, Alex Obert, Michael Rosenthal, Anthony Daboub, Conner Cleary, Josh Samuels (4), Bret Bonanni (2), Alex Bowen (1), Nolan McConnell, Jackson Kimbell (1), John Mann, Jon Sibley. Head Coach: Dejan Udovicic.
HUNGARY: Viktor Nagy, Miklos Gor-Nagy, Norbert Madaras (3), Balazs Erdelyi, Marton Vamos (2), Norbert Hosnyanszky, Daniel Angyal, Marton Szivos (3), Daniel Varga (4), Denes Varga (1), Marton Toth (2), Balazs Harai (1), Attila Decker. Head Coach: Tibor Benedek.
Water Polo News / Swimming News courtesy of USA Water Polo.
