Italy Stops USA Men 8-5 In Second Match Of FINA World Championships
7/20/2011 12:00:00 AM
Shanghai, China – July 20 – A slow start doomed the United States for the second straight match at the FINA World Championships as they were downed by Italy 8-5 to fall to 0-2 in group play with a final match against South Africa remaining on Friday at 12:10pm (9:10pm pst 7/21). Brian Alexander (Santa Ana, CA/UCSB/Olympic Club) led the offense with two goals while Merrill Moses (Palos Verdes, CA/Pepperdine/NYAC) recorded six saves in net.
It was scoreless early on when Italy broke through at the 4:07 mark to take an early 1-0 lead. Less than a minute later the United States earned a six on four advantage and with the fifth player returning to the pool for Italy, Alexander buried a shot to tie the match at 1-1. Italy countered with 1:16 left in the period on a power play to grab a 2-1 lead going to the second period.
In the second quarter Italy started to build a lead when they hit on a player advantage some thirty seconds into the period for a 3-1 lead. The Italians then picked up another score at the 4:11 mark and led 4-1. Fast forward to just :37 remaining in the quarter and Team USA got a crucial goal at the tail end of a power play as Layne Beaubien (Coronado, CA/Stanford/NYAC) beat the keeper on the near side for a 4-2 match in favor of Italy going to the half.
A rally was brewing for the United States at the start of the third quarter when a series of great passes led to Tim Hutten (Seal Beach, CA/UC-Irvine/Newport WPF) hitting from in close to draw within a goal at 4-3. That would be as close as Team USA would get with the next three goals all coming from the Italians. By the end of the third quarter Italy was in control 7-3.
In the fourth the United States again started to chip away with Alexander getting his second tally of the evening on a power play to get within 7-4 with 5:35 remaining. 90 seconds later Italy used a power play to score on a shot from inside two meters to thwart the rally and go up 8-4. Both sides would be quiet for the next two minutes until Tony Azevedo (Long Beach, CA/Stanford/NYAC) came through with a score on a quick shot after a restart. That made the match 8-5 in favor of Italy but it was too little too late and the Italians came away victorious.
The United States went 3/11 on power plays while Italy was 2/11, neither side attempted a penalty shot.
Scoring – Scoresheet
USA 5 (1, 1, 1, 2) B. Alexander 2, T. Azevedo 1, T. Hutten 1, L. Beaubien 1
ITA 8 (2, 2, 3, 1)
Saves – USA – M. Moses – 6
6x5 – USA – 3/11 – ITA 2/11
Penalties – USA – 0/0 – ITA 0/0
Flash Quotes
“We gave up too many bad goals. We didn’t do a very good job of getting the ball to our centers. We’ve got to be able to get the ball into the centers more to be effective. If we aren’t scoring from outside than we aren’t going to be able to get the ball into our centers and if our centers aren’t effective than the outside shooters aren’t going to be as close in. Definitely a stronger effort (than Germany) but unfortunately the same result, we have to keep getting better as the tournament moves on.” – Terry Schroeder, USA Head Coach
“We just have a tougher path, you know to put it in a positive way, we need the games. We’re hopefully going to get better as the tournament goes along. Just (need) a little stronger effort defensively, we gave up too may goals. We try to hold teams under six goals, we’re not there yet, we’ve got some work to do.” – Terry Schroeder, USA Head Coach
Mens' National Team