Serbia Denies USA Men's Water Polo a Spot in Olympic Gold Medal Match

The two-time defending champions send the Americans to the bronze-medal match after a decisive 10-6 semifinal victory.

USA goaltender Adrian Weinberg prepares for a Serbian shot / USA Today

The USA men’s water polo team’s dreams of winning its first-ever Olympic gold medal ended with a 10-6 loss to two-time defending champion Serbia in a semifinal match on Friday in Paris.

USA has reached the gold medal game three times, most recently in 2008, but has never won the Olympic men’s water polo tournament.

The Americans drop into Sunday morning’s bronze-medal match against Hungary, which lost 9-8 to Croatia in the late semifinal.

Cal grad Luca Cupido scored once, converting with 3:23 left in the second period to pull USA within 4-3.

But Serbia, which has clinched a medal in its fifth straight Olympics, outscored the Americans 6-3 the rest of the way to qualify for the gold-medal match for the third straight time.

Goaltender Adrian Weinberg, who anchored the Bears’ NCAA championships runs in 2021-22-23, played the entire game and saved 15 of 25 Serbian shots. Weinberg was the hero of USA’s quarterfinal win over Australia, making two key saves in the shootout.

Cal alum Johnny Hooper did not play in the match after being ejected from the quarterfinal match vs. Australia for what officials deemed was "brutality" after he punched an opposing player who reportedly was holding his head under water.

The difference in the match was that Serbia took advantage of extra-player chances, scoring on seven of eight opportunities, including 4-for-4 in the first half. The Americans cashed in just five of 16 power-play chances.

According to , USA has drawn the most exclusions of any team in the tournament but converted the lowest percentage of goals in extra-player situations.

USA finished third in Group A with a 3-2 record while Serbia advanced through Group B, going 2-3 to finish fourth. The Americans reached the quarterfinals after an 11-10 win over Australia on Wednesday and Serbia stayed alive by beating Greece 12-11.

Greece 15, Australia 9: Greece never trailed on its way to a decisive victory in a classification match that sends the team into the fifth-place game against Spain on Saturday morning.

Former Cal star Nikolaos Papanikolaou, a three-time winner of the Peter J. Cutino Award as the nation’s top collegiate player, played 12 minutes and was scoreless on one shot attempt in his first Olympics with Greece.

Konstantinos Kamaris scored four goals and Dimitrios Genidounias had three for Greece, which never trailed