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Youth girls claim silver in Pythia Cup

Itea, Greece (July 22).— The Aussie youth girls' water polo team won the silver medal at the Pythia Cup here, finishing behind Russia in the six-nation round-robin tournament.

Italy 8 Australia 11 (2-3,2-4,2-1,2-3)

Extra: ITA 10/4 ; Aus 3/2
Penalty: ITA 0 ; Aus 1/1
Shoots: ITA 32/8 (25%) ;AUS 22/11 (50%)
Saves: S.Reid 14

Serena Reid - Zoe Arancini 1,Genevieve Venosta,Stephanie Thomas1, Isobel Bishop, Sarah Grunberger 1, Rachel Flint 1, Breanne Appel 2, Kayle Leathen, Ashleigh Southern 4, Ellen Pittorino, Shannon Johnes, Hannah Buckling 1

Best players: Ash, Rachel, Brea, Kayle,
Rested: Kelsey, Claire and Emma-Jo

The team started well, but we but not enough communication at the pool. The attack was built very much on our centers. Counters went well, but need more drive against set up D. Beginning of the game few bad passes and bad decision been made. During 3rd quarter we toke 6 shoots, but only 1 goal. The team dominated all the way true, Italy never managed to get closer then 2 goals. Sarah Grunberger's hand injured, she cant play today - may be not even tomorrow.

Second game of the tournament:

Russia 14 - Australia 9 (3-4, 0-3, 1-6, 1-5)

Extra: RUS 8/3 ; AUS 6/3
5m: RUS 0; AUS 1/1

Shoots: RUS 35/14 (40%); AUS 22/9 (41%)

K.Wakefield - Z.Arancini 1,G.Venosta, S.Thomas, I.Bishop, E.Graham 1, R.Flint, B.Appel 3, K.Leathem, A.Southern 2, E.Pittorino, C.Pierce 1, S.Johnes 1
Best players: Brea, Steph, Claire
Rested: S.Reid, H.Buckling, S.Grunberger (injured)

Excellent start with confident attacks,but with few bad passes -cost us 2 goals - at the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter was the best performance so fare. Aggressive offenses , disciplined defense made us to lead 7-4 at half time. The Russians come out with heavy press at the 3rd quarter to try to still balls and score early goals to get back to the game. We let them to do that...The counter D was very poor, most of the time the goalie had not much chance to save. The worst performance we ever played. End of the quarter we become a goal behind. For end of the game we lost our confident. We could not handle the physical part of the game, even we had more bigger players then them. Interestingly at the second half of the game only 2 major fault been called as the refries let the players to do almost every think.

Looks like we not ready to play 2 hard games on one day yet. The Russians won by 10 goals in the morning and we had close game with Italy.

Tomorrow early morning game against Spain fallowed by afternoon match with France. Both games winnable if we play as well then the first half tonight.

Australia 8 Spain 9 (1-2,2-2,2-4,3-1)

Extra AUS 13/3; ESP 8/3
5m AUS 1/1; ESP 3/1
Shoots: AUS 25/8 ; ESP 22/9
Saves:Serena 7 (2x5m) ESP 6

Best Players: SERENA, Brea, Zoe, Emma-Jo

Rested: Sarah (still injured),Kelsey,Ellen

Goals: Zoe 2, Brea 4, Emma-Jo 1, Ash 1,

Unexpected loss from Spain in this morning.The defense was better then before lead by Serena, but few individual mistake was cost us too much. Several counter attack finished with bad passes or open player never received the ball. From the 3 man up we scored, 2 was quick 1-2 so we was struggling at the 4-2 and 3-3 set up too. Basically from the rest of 11 extra we scored once only. The Spanish played rush at men down, we did the movement but most of the time the pass was bad or the decision was poor - include our top players. Even after time outs we had open players with no ball...Spain will be beatable for us in the future.

Tonight next game with France.

We had our 4th game in Ithea at Pythia Cup with France

Australia 16 - France 5 (3-2,2-3,5-0,6-0)

Goals: Z.Arancicni 2, S.Thomas 1, S.Johnes 1,R.Flint 1,H.Buckling 1, K.Leathem 5, E.Pittorino 1, E.Graham 3, C.Pierce 1

Extra: AUS 8/4; FRA 4/2
5m: AUS 2/1; FRA 1/1
Shoots: AUS 25/16; FRA 16/5
Saves: Kelsey 3; Serena 3

Rested: Isobel Bishop, Ash Southern, Brea Appel

Bets players: Serena Raid, Zoe Arancini , Kayle Leatham, Steph Thomas

We started the game with players with less experience. Offensively they did well, but the defense was not good enough. We was defending face to the sunset for a 1st two quarter, so it is explain a bit of the poor blocking. The 2nd half was much better. I change the defense at half time. The girls did good job to keep the French scoreless in the 3rd-4th quarter . France has one main player - Zoe toke over her at the second half and the rest of the team take care of the rest. The winning means if we beat the home team tomorrow morning on the last game we can be 2nd, if we lose we may be 5th due the unexpected loss from Spain.

The hotel had no power, so the e-mail above did not go true.

5th game of the tournament:

Australia 11 - Greece 2 (3-1, 5-1, 2-0,1-0)

Goals: Brea Appel 6, Zoe Arancini 2, Ash Southern2, Kayle Leatham 1

Extra: AUS 8/4 ; GRE 6/2
Shoots: AUS 30/11; GRE 14/2
Saves: Serena 4

Rested: Kelsey Wakefield, Hannah Buckling, Shannon Jones

Best players: Brea, Zoe, Steph, Serena,Rachel.

This game become the most important due the previous results. The team played under pressure against the home team, but all players was very focused and disciplined. From the very beginning we dominated. Brea scored from the first attack, Zoe toke out the main player from the Greek team and at the defense all players done they role. The Greeks could not score any goals at 6 on 6, only from the men up situations. The 2nd half was even better to keep them scoreless both quarter. We should score few more goals, but the Greek goalie played very well and sometimes the shooters wasn't concentrate enough. We created much more opportunities then earlier, with better finish…

After the presentation we jumped on the bus and toke 3,5 hours (with one half an hour stop) drive to Athens. In the afternoonthe team decided to go to the beach for about 1 hour. After dinner at Hotel London, we toke a tram ride to the central square for sight seeing.

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