Sunday, June 3, 2012
Overnight in China, the Australia women’s national water polo team beat the China women’s national water polo team 8–7 in the FINA Women’s World League Super Finals semi finals to qualify for the gold medal match later tonight against the United States women’s national water polo team who beat the Greece women’s national water polo team 7–6 in their own qualifying match.
Australia trailed the Chinese 0–2 at the end of the first quarter before coming back to win. They were down 0–4 at one point before battling back for the win. Australia finished the second period with 3 goals, scored 3 more in the third period with China only able to score 2, and beat China in scoring in the fourth period with 2 goals to 1.
In the qualifying game between the United States and Greece, Courtney Mathewson and Kami Craig led the United States in scoring with two goals each. Ann Arbor, Michigan based goal keeper Betsey Armstrong had seven saves in net for her team. Greece performed better than Team USA during power plays, capitalising on one of their three shots while the United States was unable to score on any of their six opportunities.
The gold medal game is to be played at 19:00 local time in Changshu, China immediately following the bronze medal match between China and Greece being played at 17:40 local time. It will be a rematch of the VISA Water Polo International final, which Australia won.
In other matches played yesterday, the Germany women’s national water polo team beat the Canada women’s national water polo team 15–13 in an overtime penalty shootout to qualify for the fifth place match in their inaugural appearance in the competition, while the Russia women’s national water polo team beat the Italy women’s national water polo team 17–4. The fifth place match between Germany and Russia is to be played at 16:20 local time, while the seventh place match between Canada and Italy are to kick off the final round at 15:00 local time.