USA blanks water polo jrs 17-0

T&T became the first team to draw a blank at the 17th Pan American Junior Men’s Championships after it was trampled 17-0 by joint pre-tournament favourites USA in the third of four quarterfinal matches at the Olympic Park Sports Centre’ swimming pool, Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Thursday night. For the USA which topped Pool B in the round-robin group series with four wins from as many matches, Jacob Himmel led the way with four goals while Reid Chase and Max Irving added three goals each in the lopsided win to set up a semifinal clash last night (Friday) with host Canada. Jesse Camou and Kyle Trush chipped in with two goals each for the Americans who led 6-0, 9-0 and 13-0 at the end of the first, second and third quarter respectively, while Benjamin Stevenson, Ben Hallock and Patrick Fellner, added one apiece.

 

In Thursday’s other quarterfinals, Canada held off Puerto Rico 8-7 and Colombia won a South-American battle with Venezuela 11-9 to set up the other semifinal clash with Brazil, 15-5 victors over Mexico in its last-eight match-up. T&T was due to face Puerto Rico in one of two fifth to eighth place semifinals last night while Mexico played Venezuela in the other. Today, the fifth to eighth losers meet from 9 am for seventh to eight spot while the winners do battle for fifth and sixth place ahead of the main draw third and finals. On Wednesday night in the final preliminary round of matches, T&T went under to host Canada, 4-16 to end in fourth spot with a 1-3 record.

 

Devon Thumwood and Paul Spooner scored three goals each for the Canadians, 2-0 and 5-2 leaders at the end of the first two quarters. Matthew Hart, Martin Pelland and David Lapins tallied two goals for the host which also got single items from Maxime Gallant, Nikolai Mitrovic, Daniel Vindisch and Rodrigo Rojas. For T&T, Shaquille Mitchell got two goals, and Russell Ferreira and Jonathan Gillette, one each. In the other final round matches on Wednesday, Brazil clobbered Argentina 27-3 to cement top spot on goal-difference from Canada in Pool A after both teams ended with seven points, three more than Venezuela. In Pool B, Colombia defeated Peru 10-5 to climb to second with four points, the same as Puerto Rico and Mexico but with a superior goal-aggregate, and Puerto Rico upstaged Mexico, 7-4.

 

Final  Group standings

Group A

Teams P W D L F A Pts

Brazil 4 3 1 0 69 26 7

Canada 4 3 1 0 64 29 7

Venezuela 4 2 0 2 43 55 4

T&T 4 1 0 3 33 60 2

Argentina 4 0 0 4 25 63 0

 

Group B

USA 4 4 0 0 55 13 8

Colombia 4 2 0 2 28 32 4

Puerto Rico 4 2 0 2 32 27 4

Mexico 4 2 0 2 31 36 4

Peru 4 0 0 4 20 58 0

 

Thursday’s quarterfinal results: 

Brazil 15 bt Mexico 6

Canada 8 bt Puerto Rico 7

Colombia 11 bt Venezuela 9

USA 17 bt T&T 0