For the third time in four games, the U.S. Women’s Water Polo Team held an opponent under six goals as they routed France, 17-5, and booked a spot in the quarterfinals at the Paris Olympics.
Dos Pueblos High alum Ryann Neushul has played a key role for Team USA as a center defender. She added some offense on Friday with two goals, including one on a penalty shot.
The Americans held France to one goal in the first quarter, two in each of the second and third, and no goals in the fourth. Goalies Ashleigh Johnson and Amanda Longan combined for 11 saves. Longan played her youth club water polo for Santa Barbara 805.
Captain Maggie Steffens scored her 61st career Olympic goal on a penalty shot, extending her Olympic record. Ten players found the back of the net for Team USA.
“Our teamwork was much better today, and we need to keep working on that and just keep getting better,” Steffens said. “It’s a whole new tournament. It’s kind of crazy. If you think about the Olympics, you start in one tournament with bracket play, and then it’s do-or-die, no matter what… The woman’s competition is just so, so competitive. Everyone is good. It doesn’t matter how many Olympics you’ve been to. Everyone is a top competitor and everybody is somebody that you respect and need to bring your best game.”
Team USA play their quarterfinal game on Aug. 6 against an opponent to be determined.
Miles Evans/Chase Budinger Fall to Spain
Local Miles Evans and partner Chase Budinger dropped their second straight match in the Olympics beach volleyball competition and finished third in their group at the Eiffel Tower Stadium.
The Americans were beaten by Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira, 21-18, 21-11, to finish at 1-2 in Group F. They avoided elimination when France lost to group winner Netherlands to finish 0-3. Spain’s win clinched second in the pool behind Netherlands.
Evans/Budinger will play Australia’s Zachary Schubert/Thomas Hodges in a “lucky loser” match on Saturday at 2 p.m.
In the Olympic tournament format, the six group winners and runners-up automatically advance to the Round of 16. The remaining four spots go to the two highest-ranked third-place teams and the finalists of the four-team “lucky loser” round.
Tiebreaker placement among third-place pool finishers is first determined by total match points, then set ratio if necessary, and then total point ratio if tiebreaking statistics are still necessary.
Budinger said Spain seemed to have an answer for everything they were throwing at them. “Once you get behind in the chess match, because that’s kind of how we see games at times, and they are one move or two moves ahead of you, it’s pretty tough to come back and win.”
In the second set, Evans/Budinger were down 5-6 before Spain scored on a U.S. service error and by winning a long rally to gain momentum.
“Going into that next set was a little bit of a down shift,” Evans said in the post-match press conference. “Just trying to find that motivation and that aggressiveness. I thought we had a nice little spark there in the second set where we could have turned things around, but they scored three or four points in a row and that kind of added to the spiral, if you will.”
Evans is a Dos Pueblos alum. He played college indoor volleyball at SBCC and UC Santa Barbara and started playing beach volleyball at East Beach. He is the fourth homegrown beach volleyball player to play in the Olympics, joining Karch Kiraly, Dax Holdren and Todd Rogers.
There is a local tie with the other U.S. team of Miles Partain/Andy Benesh, who advanced to the Round of 16 by placing second in their group. Partain is the son of Westmont alums Peter Partain and Lisa Noordewier. Peter was a basketball standout for the Warriors in the late 1980s, early ’90s.
