Both Australian water polo teams, the Aussie Stingers and the Aussie Sharks have booked their places in their respective quarter finals at the FINA World Championships in Budapest.
The Stingers led by VIS scholarship holder, Rowie Webster, were the first of the two Australian sides to punch their ticket into the quarter final round, defeating France 16-2 in a must-win match.
The win now sees the Stingers take on the reigning Olympic champions, USA on Tuesday.
VIS athlete, Maddy Steere, said the win had given the team a lot of confidence heading into the finals.
“Feels great to secure our spot in the top eight. We got a good win over France so that has given us a lot of confidence to go our game in two days time against America,” she said.
“We are hoping to take the good things from today, work on the things we need to fix and really take it to America in our quarter-final,” Steere said.
Only hours later, the Aussie Sharks too locked in their quarter-final place with a dominating performance over Brazil 8-3.
The result was a redeeming one for the Sharks, after going down to Brazil by one goal in the opening game of the Rio Olympics last year.
Australian Men’s Assistant Coach, Dean Kontic, said the team can be proud of the game.
“We played well, from the beginning we controlled the game and we didn’t allow Brazil to come closer and played good defence which was our main goal for this game.”
The Sharks side, which includes VIS athlete Lachlan Edwards will now prepare to take on Serbia in what is expected to be a difficult match on Wednesday.
Image: Water Polo Australia
