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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, August 27, 2004

U.S. claims bronze in water polo

Advertiser News Services

ATHENS, Greece — Turns out the U.S. women's water polo players can be happy with bronze, especially considering they came close to leaving the Olympics with nothing.

The Americans had to gut out a 6-5 victory over Australia after squandering a four-goal lead yesterday. In the gold-medal game, Italy prevailed, 10-9, over Greece in a game that went six periods.

The top-ranked Americans expected to be playing for gold, until Italy upset them, 6-5, in the semifinals Tuesday. They were lucky to escape with bronze after falling apart against Australia after building a 5-1 lead.

Australia rolled off four unanswered goals to tie the game early in the fourth period. It took a player-advantage goal by Ellen Estes, who scored three goals in the game, and a tense two-plus minutes of defense to bail the Americans out of a second straight disaster.

"I guess we like a little drama," U.S. attacker Heather Petri said. "It slipped away for a little while. At least no one panicked. We just had to work harder to pull it together. But just once, I'd like to play a game free of drama."

The U.S. players were laughing and smiling yesterday, a sharp contrast to the tears and disappointment that followed their semifinal loss. It seems almost losing a second time put their situation in perspective.

The players huddled together in a circle before the match to remind each other one last time that they were playing for something. And not just pride. They had a bronze medal at stake.

"We talked about going all out in the pool," Brenda Villa said. "This was our last game together. We needed a happy memory."

Two days ago, most players spoke and reacted as if they had lost everything at these Olympics.

In 2000, they fell short of the gold medal by a goal, to Australia, no less.

Thus began a four-year campaign designed to move up one spot. Winning at last year's world championships convinced the Americans they had arrived.

The fall Tuesday was a hard slap back to reality.

"We trained so hard for so long to be in the gold medal game. And we just wanted a medal after this," said U.S. goalkeeper Jackie Frank, sobbing as she left the pool.

Knight Ridder News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.