The Huntington Beach-based U.S. women’s water polo team will face Australia Saturday in a matchup of undefeated teams to conclude the round-robin portion of the FINA Women’s Intercontinental Tournament at UC Davis.
The game will be the first of two in two days between the two teams. The U.S. and Australia are assured of meeting in Sunday’s final of the six-team tournament.
The U.S. defeated Canada, 6-5, on Friday as Laguna Beach High School senior Aria Fischer scored twice and fellow Olympic gold medalist Melissa Seidemann scored the tie-breaking goal with one second left.
Seidemann’s power-play goal came 20 seconds after her former Stanford teammate Gurprett Sohi scored for Canada to tie the score.
Canada (1-3) took a 4-3 lead with five minutes, 42 seconds to play on former USC standout Joelle Bekhazi’s power-play goal.
The U.S. (4-0) tied the score 16 seconds later on Ryann Neushul’s goal and took a 5-4 lead on Jewel Roemer’s goal with 1:48 to play.
The U.S. trailed 3-1 at halftime, but tied the score on third-quarter goals by Fischer and Paige Hauschild.
The U.S. was one for 10 on the power play and missed the game’s only penalty shot. Canada scored on three of its four power-play opportunities.
The U.S. led 34-20 in shots. U.S. goalkeeper Georgia Phillips made 12 saves. Her Canadian counterpart Jessica Gaudreault made 11 and one steal.
The victory was the 26th straight for the U.S. dating back to 2016 when it was 40-2.
“I have no expectations going into any of these games,” U.S. coach Adam Krikorian said.
“I don’t know our team that well. I don’t know these other teams that well and I could honestly care less about the result. Just using this as a good opportunity to get some experience.”
—City News Service