The Australian Junior Women’s Water Polo team have narrowly missed out on the quarter finals of the FINA World Championships going down to Hungary overnight.
Leading in to this, their fourth game, the Australian’s had had a mixed start to their campaign going down to Greece in their first game before defeating China and South Africa in games two and three.
Given their earlier results the team, including WAIS athletes Tess Hosking and Sofie Pontre, needed to win their fourth game to have any hopes of making the quarter finals.
The first half of game four saw an even contest, Hungary outscoring Australia 2-1 in the first quarter with the result only to be reversed in the second, making the score 3-3 at the main break.
Moving into the third quarter a series of misses alongside a couple of offensive fouls proved costly to the Aussies as Hungary scored three goals to their one.
Heading into the final quarter two goals down, the Australians came out fighting showing promise with two close attempts at goal early in the term.
Unfortunately they could not hold their form as a few errors allowed the more experienced Hungarian side to net two quick goals.
With 66 seconds left in the game the Australians were able to score one last goal however unfortunately it was too late to affect the outcome of the game.
Hungary ran out winners with eight goals to Australia’s five.
Australia will now take on Serbia in the 9th/12th place playoff match at 6:00pm tonight (WST).
