| Tuesday 11 July 2000
U.S. women have
water-polo edge
DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette
The Canadian women's water-polo team returned from a
pre-Olympic tournament to their Montreal training headquarters yesterday with silver
medals - and no shortage of motivation to even the score with their archrival American
opponents two months down the road in Sydney.
Canada fell 5-4 to the U.S. in the gold-medal match of the
Holiday Cup Sunday night before a sellout crowd of 2,200 at Los Alamitos, Calif.
The tournament grouped the six teams - Canada, the U.S.,
Australia, the Netherlands, Russia and Kazakhstan - that will see action when women's
water-polo makes its Olympic debut. It was their last test before Sydney.
Brenda Villa of the U.S. fired the winning goal past
Canadian goalie Isabelle Auger with 2:37 to play. The Americans won all five of their
round-robin games to advance to the championship match.
The host country led 4-3 heading into the final quarter,
but Canada's Johanne Begin tied the game with 4:33 to play. Villa then beat Auger, who
made a total of nine saves, from about five metres out to put the U.S. ahead to stay.
The U.S. went 4-for-8 on the power play, while Canada was
0-for-2.
Australia won the bronze with a 5-4 victory over the
Netherlands, and is bound to face huge Olympic pressure competing at home.
Begin, a Sainte-Foy police officer on a leave of absence to
prepare for the Games, scored three goals on Sunday, while captain Cora Campbell had the
other. Begin had a team-high 12 goals during the six-day, six-game event. That was one
more than Campbell, who was selected the tourney's most valuable defensive player.
Ann Dow and co-captain Waneek Horn-Miller had six goals
apiece, while Marie-Claude Deslieres, Marie-Luc Arpin, Valerie Dionne and Jana Salat also
scored for Canada.
Sunday's game likely was a preview of the gold-medal game
fans will see in Sydney. Canada beat the U.S. last spring to finish fifth at the FINA Cup,
earning an Olympic berth, and knocked off the Americans again to win the gold medal at
last summer's Pan American Games in Winnipeg.
The Americans defeated Canada 12-9 in Holiday Cup
round-robin play before winning Sunday's final.
Canadian head coach Dan Berthelette is expected to finalize
his roster within the next week. He has 11 of his 13 players already selected, with only
two goalies yet to be named.
Reprinted with permission
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