2012 Summer Olympics: Team USA Water Polo Women Will Be Going For GOLD!

Tonight was an amazing night for the women of Team USA Water Polo as they pulled out a win over Australia in overtime. There was a really strange call made by the officials with one second left in the game, giving the Aussies a penalty shot. Being down by one point, this was a huge call by the officials. As well as Betsey Armstrong played in net, she could not stop the shot and so the game would go into two 3 minute extra periods to determine who would go for the gold medal in two days. The U.S. scored twice and stopped the Aussies to advance to the final round. What an amazing moment. I can tell yo that I had chills at the end of the game.

From the very beginning of the game, the crowds were very loud, chanting "USA, USA, USA". 

As I mentioned, Betsey Armstrong played an excellent game, stopping 11 shots and holding the Aussies scoreless in the two overtime periods (with great defense in front of her).

Every time the team would score, everybody would go crazy, including the women and coaches on the bench.

I love being at the Olympics since there is so much National pride from all the countries.

Maggie Steffens (also from the SF Bay Area and heading to Stanford next year) scored 4 times in this match. She is the youngster on the team, but has become the big scoring threat to all the other teams.

A good example of the strong defense in front of Armstrong.

 

Another one of my extreme close-up shots, which I really like. 

Rejected!

Adam Krikorian, the coach of the USA Women's team, trying to understand the call by the referees in the last minute of the game.

And then, with a two goal lead, the clocked clicked down to zero and the game was over. I had already changed the camera settings to correctly capture the athletes on the bench (which is completely different from the lighting in the pool), and grabbed this shot.

 

And then I quickly changed the settings back and grabbed the reactions of the women in the pool.

A post game huddle.

As you can see, they were filled with jubilation as they made their way off the pool deck.

What a great feeling to know that you will be walking away from these Games with a Silver or Gold Medal.

Over the last couple of days, I have been talking to NBC's Pierre McGuire on the bus ride over to the venue. Since both of us were in Vancouver covering hockey, it was interesting to talk about the similarities of water polo and hockey. We also talked about the women's team and hoped for a good outcome today. I saw Pierre after the game and said "that was a great game" and he said "no, that was an EPIC game, one of the best ever." I have to agree with him.

I am so proud and honored to be the official photographer for Team USA Water Polo and can't wait to photograph the Gold Medal match. USA, USA, USA!!