Women’s Water Polo Survives a Nail-Biter, Beats Hungary 5-4 To Advance To The Semifinals

NANTERRE, France — Looking to get one step closer to their goal of a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal — something that has never been done before in water polo — the number two U.S. women triumphed 5-4 in a nail-biter of a quarterfinal match against Hungary in the last matchup of the day at La Defense Arena.

Finding out that they were set to play the number three team, Hungary — who beat them 10-8 in their final home game before leaving for Paris — the Americans had to believe they would come out on top. But that positive self-talk didn’t help settle the nerves.

“Going into a quarterfinal, no matter how many times you've been in that position or not, I think you're going to be a little nervous. But nerves aren't necessarily bad. It means you care, right?” three-time Olympian Rachel Fattal said. “So, I think it's okay to be a little nervous. But then as we start playing, the nerves settle and we just play water polo — a game we’ve played for a lot of our lives.”

In what turned out to be the lowest combined score of any game in the tournament thus far, the scoring went back and forth until Fattal shot the deciding goal into the back of the Hungarians net to win the game with three minutes left on the clock.

Leading scorer, U.S. captain Maggie Steffens — who was responsible for two of the goals — admitted that they didn’t go into the game with any expectations, only that it was going to be a challenge.

“Expectations are tricky and I think that’s something we try to stay away from because at the end of the day, that's why you play a game — because you have no idea what's going to happen,” the four-time Olympian said. “That's why you love it because when the whistle blows you don't know if you're going to win, you don't know if you're going to lose. You’ve just got to play the game.”

The team’s defense — and Steffens’ Olympic Village roommate, goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson — was part of the reason why the final score was in their favor when the whistle finally blew.

“Ashleigh is amazing,” Steffens gushed. “She’s a huge leader for us. She’s communicating. She has her calm voice.”

However, the two were anything but calm when the time ticked to zero.

“Me and Maggie hugged each other and just screamed in each other’s faces, acknowledging that we both put our whole selves into that game and that we both could see the effort and appreciate the effort,” Johnson shared.

Even though the women have medaled at every Olympics since the sport was added to the program in 2000, they are not trying to get ahead of themselves.

“It’s always the next play, this moment, we’re in it,” said Johnson, who is the only goalkeeper in the tournament who has been averaging better than 10 saves per game. “We have to finish this one out and then it’s, let go of whatever happened and move on to the next one. I do this for a whole game, I think a lot of us do.”

Everyone, except for maybe their coach. Head coach of the U.S. women’s national team, Adam Krikorian, admitted that he is already thinking about their next game, the semifinals against Australia on Thursday night.

“I hate my mind,” he laughed, “and how it just goes there immediately. This is a dangerous team, so we’re going to have our work cut out for us.”

Lisa Costantini has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than a decade, including for the International Olympic Committee. She is a freelance writer who has contributed to TeamUSA.com since 2011.