USA Water Polo vs Hungary at Stanford - The women's Olympic team dominates!

Last night was a great night for USA Water Polo, as more than 3000 people came to Stanford University to watch the women of Team USA take on the women of Team Hungary.

This was the largest crowd in the US to watch a water polo match, and as close as many people will come to seeing the Olympic team in action. I was amazed at the length of the entry line and glad to see so many people showing up to sheer on the team.

People were definitely patriotic! I looked up into the stands to see if there were any good photo opportunities and saw this flag poking out of the crowd. Normally I would want to get more faces in the shot, but I like that the focus of this image is the red, white and blue.

Here are a couple of photos from the warm ups.

This was a great moment before the start of the game. They were playing a video, starring all the women from the team, and I caught them all enjoying it from the other side of the pool deck.

And then the action began.

As you might be able to tell from this photo, the lighting at the pool was a challenge this late in the day. There were some areas of the pool that were really bright and other shaded areas which were covered in dark shadows. Not the easiest photo environment, but workable. I am looking forward to shooting all the Olympic games indoors, where I can count on nice even light.

I like this shot of the coach working with the women.

I had to take this picture of my friend who was in the second row of the bleachers. C.J. is a good friend of the family and a really great water polo player. When I started studying the game in preparation for being their team photographer at the Olympics, I had her by my side at many games helping me thoroughly understand the game. She deserved a photo in the blog for that!

I love the amount of leg strength to get themselves this far out of the water. Awesome!

A hard shot from 5 meters out... the American women dominated from start to finish.

USA scores again.

This was one of my favorite "reaction shots" from the game. Since Team USA dominated so heavily, there was not much celebrating after each goal, but this shows the complete frustration as the Hungarian goal tender missed an easy shot.

Another great corner shot.

As I mentioned, this was a sold out crowd at Stanford University, with standing room only.

This photo pretty much tells the story of how the game went for the Hungarian goalie. With a final score of 15 to 7, the Americans dominated the Hungarian players.

After the game, the team turned and thanked the crowd. It was a really nice moment. The next time I see the team will be over in London and I can't wait. Go USA!