Women’s Youth World Championships, Belgrade, Day 5 — Match Reports

The fifth day of the 4th FINA World Women’s Youth Water Polo Championships in Belgrade (SRB) has justified the high expectations around it. It was the day that caused happiness among the teams in Spain, Greece, Italy, and Australia. These four national squads have qualified for the semi-finals and they will play in the next two days to decide on the new champion.

The biggest surprise of the tournament so far has happened this Friday, when the Italians managed to keep out of the medal race one of the biggest favorites in the tournament, the team of USA.

The semi-finals will then oppose Spain vs Greece and Italy vs Australia.

Follow the live score and standings!

Match Reports

Finals 15th place: Serbia v Argentina 18:8

Quarters: 4:1, 4:1, 4.2, 6:4

A consolation win for the host team of these Championships who was expecting more. Ana Milicevic was the star of the match by netting five goals.

Finals 13th place: Brazil v South Africa 10:7

Quarters: 3:3, 2:1, 3:2, 2:1

At the beginning of the last quarter, South Africa reduced a lead of the Brazilian team to only 8:7 and provoked uncertainty concerning the outcome of the game. However, in last three minutes, MVP Kemiliy Ferreira Leao, with two goals, solved the dilemma about the winner and the 13th place of the World Championships.

Semifinals 9 – 12 place: Uzbekistan v New Zealand 2:10

Quarters: 0:4, 0:3, 0:0, 2:3

Another good game for New Zealand. Uzbekistan was a much weaker team, incapable of presenting any solution for stronger and more aggressive opponents. New Zealand goalkeeper Bridget Layburn was brilliant with nine saves out of nine shots on her goal! Morgan Mc Dowall was the best scorer with four goals.

semifinals 9 – 12 place: Canada v Kazakhstan 16:7

Quarters: 3:1, 3:0, 4:2, 6:4

There was no dilemma about the winner. From the very beginning, the quality of the Canadians was obvious. Three minutes before the end, Canada had even a 10-goal lead. Apryl Gonzales and Valeria Rojas were dominant in the attack. Kazakhstan can be pleased with the placement among the top 12 teams.

Quarterfinals – quarterfinal 1: Spain v Hungary 13:10

Quarters: 4:2. 5:2, 2:5, 2:1

Extraordinary game! The Hungarians did not give it up, even in situations when Spain had a huge lead (11:4 in the third minute of the third quarter)! In just five minutes, Petovari and her teammates made the rarely seen consecutive series of 5:0. Spain retained the decisive lead to final victory with goals by Mireia Guiral and Andree Arias.

Quarterfinals – quarterfinal 2: Greece v Russia 10:6

Quarters: 2:0, 4:2, 3:1, 1:3

With three goals in a row in the final minutes of a match, Russia manages to “soften” the defeat. Greece was much better, with a decisive lead of 10:3 with only two minutes before the end. Greek goalie Emmanouela Archontaki was well supported by Anna Ioulia Kontoni, while Russian players couldn’t do much to oppose the Hellenic strength. A fully deserved triumph for Greece.

Quarterfinals – quarterfinal 3: USA v Italy 6:7

Quarters: 1:1, 1:4, 2:1, 2:1

The biggest surprise of the World Youth Championships in Belgrade, so far! Italy played extraordinarily in the second quarter. Goalkeeper Caterina Banchelli was the dominant advantage of the Italian team before the end of the second quarter when Italy led 5:2.

After four minutes of playing in the third quarter, the Italian lead even increased to 6:2! Americans then tried everything to overcome the situation. By the end of the third quarter, the USA scored two goals. In the first five minutes of the final quarter, Abrielle Hill and Honnie Vandeweghe-O’Shea managed to score to 6:6. It was 3.11 minutes to the end. In a very exciting finish, Lucrezia Cergol scores a goal for Italy only 43 seconds before the end.

The subsequent attack of the American side was disorganised, they lost the ball and Italians could keep the advantage until the final whistle.

Quarterfinals – quarterfinal 4: Netherlands v Australia 6:8

Quarters: 3:3, 2:2, 1:2, 0:1

The great victory of Australia! Also, a very bad day for the Netherlands, whose players missed even two penalty shots and couldn’t score any goals from six extrawomen situations. In a very balanced match, Australian kept control of the game all the time.

The Dutch have repeatedly had a one-goal lead, but players of Australian coach Damjanovic always managed to overcome the advantage. At the end of the third quarter, Abby Andrews took Australia to lead (7:6), which was boosted by Jamie Oberman at 2.40 until the end. There was no change anymore. Goalkeeper of Australia, Lily Hawton was decisive in front of her goal.

VT GobblerFest

Gobblerfest was fun until the storm started rollin’ through... if you missed out on meeting us an interest meeting will be held soon!

https://www.facebook.com/VTWomensWaterPolo/?tn-str=k*F

HEAD COACH BORA DIMITROV: ST. FRANCIS COLLEGE BROOKLYN TERRIERS “WILL BE BETTER THIS YEAR”

BROOKLYN N.Y. — St. Francis College Brooklyn is posting a a series of interviews with St. Francis men’s water polo players by journalist Michael Randazzo as the Terriers prepare to open the 2018 season at Brown University’s Bruno Classic on Saturday, September 1 against Pepperdine University.

A year after winning Northeast Water Polo Conference’s Coach of the Year honors in his first season as a head coach, St. Francis’ Bora Dimitrov is back for a second run with more players and potential than Terrier fans have seen in recent memory.

With 25 players vying for what was ultimately determined to be 18 spots on his roster, Dimitrov—three years removed from representing St. Francis in the pool—now has the bodies to compete against the top programs in the East. The question is: will all his top players make it through a long and grueling Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) season and advance the Terriers to their first conference final since 2013?

Swimming World’s Michael Randazzo spoke to Dimitorv on the St. Francis pool deck at the beginning of practices for the 2018 season.

– You come into a new season with more players than you have roster spots.

Having [18] guys on the St. Francis roster is just very exciting, because now we’re going to have people jump in and replace those who are tired. It’s really exciting to see 25 guys battling to make the [team], because no position is given—like in the last couple of season because we were lacking players. Even the players who were not that skillful were getting a spot with the team—but they were not that deserving.

– Injuries to Botond Kadar and Bogdan Kostic scuttled your season last year; how does your team stay healthy?

That’s a challenge. This year we’re not going to play the Harvard crossover tournament [in October] because [last year] things went downhill exactly after that tournament. We won all our games but we traveled to California three days after that and the guys were exhausted. That 11-match winning streak was just blown up.

I’ve organized the schedule better to prevent those injuries. Some guys are playing most of the game—and that’s why they get injured. This year we’re going to have a different approach and play a lesser number of games because we shouldn’t play so many non-conference games. You get gassed and that’s what happened to us last year—we finally got the winning attitude I wanted us to have then we ran out of gas. And, of course, people are going to get injured.

You want to play those games and you want to win, but at the cost of our two best offensive players. Although we lost them I really liked the attitude our players showed. Even though we lost against Harvard on two rebounds—lucky tips that put [back] in the cages—it was really hard to take that loss.

We’re going to have a nice rematch with [the Crimson] this year and if everybody stays healthy we will put in the work.

– You’ve now got a year under your belt as head coach for the Terriers. How has that experience helped in preparing your team for this season?

Water polo has always been my passion—and I’m very passionate about coaching these guys. Carl [Quigley] is my assistant coach—after 43 years at St. Francis College—it’s going to be a challenge for two of us to handle all these guys. But I always make sure that we’re all on the same page because going to St. Francis is not easy, especially when you have so many international players. You have housing issues, you have issues of [players] adjusting to college life and American culture—and that at the beginning of the season when you’re anxious for that first win to come!

Once they win that first one their confidence goes up, they get adjusted to everything and we arrive on the same page all together; then it’s easier from that point on.

It’s only been one year for me as a head coach but I hope it’s going to be many years and I hope we’re going to get great results.

– Which of your players do you expect will stand out in 2018?

Obviously, our four returning seniors [Kostic, Oggie Antanaskovic, Nikita Prokhin, Jonas Veazey] are going to be a big part of the team this year, especially because they’ve now played three years [at St. Francis]. Our conference is predictable; throughout the years the teams have the same tactics and same playing styles. Our seniors know it and that’s one of the biggest strength we have.

We have a couple of new juniors, Matheus [Santos] and Benedek [Molnar] who are going to contribute. Matheus is coming from Golden West College, which is one of the best community college programs in California. Then we have [freshman] Djore Stanic coming from Serbia—he was with the Serbian junior national team. He’s going to be a really important contributor.

We have Will Lapkin of course. He had a brilliant season last year. Boris Posavec from Croatia; I believe he’ll have a good season. They’re both juniors as well, so they’ve had some playing experience [in the conference].

Overall, we have 10-to-12 really good guys who can play at an equal level and [are experienced with] conference play, the hardest part of the season.

– It will be great to see Carl back on the St. Francis bench again.

Carl is the face of our program—it was always like that and is always going to be that way. I’m very happy that he accepted the assistant coach position because I was expecting that he was going to fully retire. But that’s Carl; he wasn’t going to just disappear.

We have many new guys—and who can help them better than Carl?!

– As you size up your Northeast Water Polo Conference competition, what do you expect this year for your team in conference play?

I would be lying if I said I was expecting anything less than a championship. But, there’s Harvard, which has had an awesome recruiting year, and Princeton with a new coach. That can go in two different ways; one way [is]: the kids don’t adapt to the coach and the season doesn’t go well. The other is, the kids adapt brilliantly to the coach and they do a great job.

Then there’s Brown; their program has such a great history. They’re always a challenge; we beat them home and away last year but guess what: they beat as the beginning and end of the season. They never back down—and that’s going to be my main point of emphasis: the team that refuses to back down is the one that going to win the game.

There was the final last year—Princeton against Harvard. Princeton was up the whole game but Harvard wouldn’t back down. I believe it would be the same thing if Harvard was up because both teams know how to fight [back].

We had that mentality as well throughout those 11 games [last year]—and this big roster will help us maintain that attitude throughout this season. As long as I have the luxury of changing guys—which I’m going to do a lot this year—that will be the key to our season.

Release courtesy St. Francis College Brooklyn Athletics Communications

ASIAN GAMES 2018 Men’s Tournament — Get Ready for the Finals!

Men’s Tournament on Asian Games is coming to an end. Yesterday we’ve seen the Semifinals, and today’s games already started.

Next coming up it the Bronze-medal match – Iran vs China. Later on, Japan and Kazakhstan are going to fight for the gold.

As for Classifications 5-8, Saudi Arabia won the 7th place, and Korea beat Singapore for the 5th. Stay tuned for the Finals results!

Quarterfinals

Thursday, August 30th

09:00 Iran15
 Saudi Arabia7

10:20 Republic of Korea4
 China12

16:30 Kazakhstan20
 Indonesia4

17:50 Singapore6
 Japan28

Classifications (5-8) & Semifinals

Friday, August 31st

09:00 Classifications (5-8) Saudi Arabia5
 Singapore6

10:20 Classifications (5-8) Republic of Korea15
 Indonesia7

16:00 Semifinals Iran7
 Japan18

17:20 Semifinals China8
 Kazakhstan9

Finals

Saturday, 1st September

09:00 Classification 7-8 Saudi Arabia12
 Indonesia8

10:20 Classification 5-6 Singapore10
 Republic of Korea12

16:00 Bronze Medal Match Iran
 China

17:20 Gold Medal Match Japan
 Kazakhstan

Semifinals in Minsk Start Today — 2018 Men’s 19U European Championships

Six days of exciting matches in Minsk’s pools brought next four games on the table. The U-19 teams are getting ready for today’s semifinals, and ultimately, for the last day of the tournament tomorrow.

It’s been a journey filled with on-pins-and-needles matches. Like yesterday, when each of the teams won by a goal or two difference. In the end, Slovenia, Belarus, Turkey, and Romania celebrated in the matches for places 15-9.

Today, the best teams so far are meeting in the semifinals. The teams that made it this far are Serbia, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Spain, Montenegro, Greece, and Croatia.

Today’s Schedule

14:00 — Serbia vs Hungary

15:30 — Italy vs Russia

17:00 — Spain vs Montenegro

18:30 — Greece vs Croatia

Happy Birthday Maddie

Maddie Martinez

South Broward High

Unanimous First Team All Broward County

Broward County Player of the Year

SoFlo Water Polo Blog Tri-County Player of the Year

La Salle