Ex-Hawks scoreless, but Aussies advance

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August 6, 2012

Ex-Hawks scoreless, but Aussies advance

Anonymous STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS The Daily Star Mon Aug 06, 2012, 03:30 AM EDT

LONDON _ On a day those who once played at Hartwick College's Moyer Pool contributed no goals, two of them are one win from an Olympic medal.

Bronwen Knox and Sophie Smith, a pair of 26-year-olds who played together at Hartwick in 2005, contributed to the Australian water polo team's 20-18 shootout victory over China on Sunday in a quarterfinal at London.

Australia, which has won all four of its games at these Olympics, will play the United States at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in a semifinal. The Americans earned a 9-6 quarterfinal victory over Italy on Sunday.

Hungary and Spain will play in Tuesday's other semifinal, at 2:40 p.m. Hungary advanced with an 11-10 win over Russia, and Spain defeated Great Britain, 9-7. England's loss ended the medal chances for the third member of the Hartwick contingent _ Lisa Gibson.

Knox, who scored four goals through Australia's first three games, assisted on the first goal of the quarterfinal. She set up Rowie Webster's goal with 6 minutes, 18 seconds left in the first quarter. Knox's lone shot hit the post with 4:42 left in the opening quarter. She was ejected after a foul early in the third.

Smith also took one shot and misfired, with 17 seconds left in the first half.

Knox, a Second Team All-American as a sophomore at Hartwick in 2006, is looking for her second Olympic medal. She scored 12 goals in the 2008 Games, when Australia earned the bronze.

Australia advanced when Mel Rippon slotted home the last penalty shot, after Gao Ao hit the left post for China's second miss of the shootout.

"The girls hung in there, did it tough," Australia coach Greg McFadden said. "They have been practicing penalty shootouts since September, and three of the girls who had to take them weren't in our list to take them, and they stepped up."

Winless in the preliminary round, China never backed down against Australia and almost pulled off the upset in regular time. Then Holly Lincoln-Smith scored from long range with 35 seconds to play in the fourth period to tie the score at 14.

Australia scored first in extra time and led, 16-15, with less than a minute to play in the second of two three-minute extra periods. But this time it was China that made the dramatic strike. Sun Huizi rose out of the water to flip in a pass from Sun Yujun at the back post to tie it at 16, forcing the shootout.

Like China, England also went 0-3 in preliminary play. Spain _ 3-0-1 in the tournament _ received a goal from Maica Garcia to take a two-goal lead with 27 seconds left.

Gibson, 22, took one shot on a power play with 1:12 left in the first quarter but missed. Gibson played for Hartwick in 2008.

The U.S. (3-0-1) received 13 saves from Betsey Armstrong, and Melissa Seidemann scored three goals in its quarterfinal victory.

"I have to give it to Betsey," Seidemann said. "She came up big for us a lot, and we count on her so much, so she did awesome today."

Three minutes in, it looked as though the Italians might run away with a victory as the 2012 European champions took a 2-0 lead.

But Armstrong and the rest of the U.S. buckled down on defense, and Seidemann and the rest of the U.S. attack warmed up, fueling a 6-1 American run to close the first half with a 6-3 lead.

"Earlier in this tournament, we were obviously _ to everybody _ struggling a little bit defensively, where we were running our zones and helping back and all that," Armstrong said. "Tonight we were just tight everywhere, and that makes my job easier."

A gold-medal favorite coming in, the U.S. has clicked on offense but struggled on defense. The Americans gave up 13 goals to Hungary in their opener, then let a three-goal lead against Spain slip away in the last three minutes to settle for a 9-9 draw.

But that was the preliminary stage and not the quarterfinals, where a loss would have ended the Americans' hopes of improving on the silver medal they won at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

"We wanted to come out and show what we were capable of on defense," U.S. coach Adam Krikorian said. "And we were more in tune, more in sync with one another, and we had a little bit more of a fire to us today than I think we had in the past games."

Sunday's win sets up a semifinal Tuesday with fellow gold-medal favorite Australia, a rematch of the semifinals from Beijing. The Americans won that game, 9-8.