Back to the Weekly Home Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

A good start for Team USA

by Rick Eymer

Sometimes, Stanford grad Margie Dingeldein and the rest of her United States women's water polo teammates don't quite know which time zone they're in.

"I just get in the pool when they tell me to, eat when they tell me to, and get on a plane when they tell me to," said Dingeldein, who joined her former Stanford teammates Brenda Villa and Ellen Estes on the National Team last summer. "But it's great to come home."

Home was Stanford's Avery Aquatic Center, where Team USA captured the fifth annual Holiday Cup on Sunday with an 8-6 victory over Canada in the championship match.

Villa scored three goals and was named tournament MVP.

In preliminary matches that got underway last Thursday, the U.S. team tied Canada, 2-2, beat Brazil, 14-2, and edged Japan, 6-3.

Japan defeated Brazil, 6-5, for third place Sunday.

Team USA came up from Los Alamitos, the site of the U.S. Olympic water polo training center, a week ago and gave a clinic in Moraga, worked out at Stanford earlier last week, then played in the year's biggest international tournament on American soil.

Next stop: Italy, via Frankfurt, Germany. The team hopped on a plane Monday and took off for Rome, where the Americans will compete in the Italian Trophy Tournament that features eight of the world's top teams.

In addition to the U.S., Canada and host Italy (the defending world championship team), Germany, Olympic gold medalists Australia, Greece, The Netherlands and Russia will also be on hand.

"That's going to be a big tournament for us," said Estes. "There will be a lot of outstanding teams there and it will be nice to see how we match up against them as we look toward the next Olympics."

Qualifying for the 2004 Olympics begins next year, and the United States will have to beat Canada and Brazil to gain an automatic berth for the Olympics.

The Italian tournament also will serve as an early indication of how the United States will match up against the top contenders heading into the FINA World Cup tournament, which will be held in December in Perth, Australia.

The tournament in Italy will be the most important of the summer for the Americans.

"Playing there will help us come back and prepare for the World Cup," said Villa. "Any time we can play Canada it's only going to help us."

Villa and Estes played on the 2000 silver medal Olympic team, along with seven other returners. Team USA is already poised to challenge for yet another medal.

"The goal right now is to work on winning and getting into that mode of winning tournaments," said Estes. "This was a nice tournament to win, especially since it was at home and we lost to Canada at last year's FINA Cup."

The current configuration of the team has been together since June 18. Before then, some of the team members gathered for trips to Russia and Chicago and a few of them - Dingeldein and Estes among them - found time to graduate from college.

Even coach Guy Baker has been globetrotting the past few weeks. He just recently joined the team after coaching the 'B' squad in a tournament in Holland.

"It was nice for us to play in front of U.S. fans," he said. "It's the biggest international tournament we host, so it's special for us. It's our initial point to start to train for the World Cup."

Italy will offer another challenge for the Americans.

"We play Italy on the second night and since they're the defending world champion it will be a good indication of where we fit with the best team in the world," said Baker. "We have been trying to emphasize offense and we made improvements over the last time we played. I liked out focus and concentration."

The team will take a month break following the tournament in Italy, which may give the players a chance to stay in one time zone for a little while.

Against Canada on Sunday, the U.S. never trailed after NCAA Player of the Year Coralie Simmons scored 16 seconds into the match.

The game was tied on two occasions, with Villa's goal at 3:47 of the second period giving the Americans the lead for good.

Simmons, who played at UCLA, was the tournament's top scorer with seven goals. Villa finished with six.

Cal standout Ericka Lorenz also scored for Team USA, while Nicolle Payne minded the net.

Simmons and Heather Petri each scored in Team USA's tie with Canada on the Fourth of July.

Villa scored twice and Dingeldein added a goal in the U.S.'s win over Japan.

Estes, Simmons, Lorenz and Heather Moody each scored twice in the Americans' win over Brazil.

E-mail Rick Eymer at reymer@paweekly.com