USA Men Take Eighth Place In World Cup Division 1 Play Following 17-12 Loss To Georgia

Bucharest, Romania - January 12 - The USA Men's National Team finished in eighth place at the World Aquatics World Cup Division 1 competition, falling to Georgia 17-12. Ryan Ohl led the offense with four goals with Adrian Weinberg and Bernardo Herzer combining in net for 8 saves. Team USA finishes 2-3 in Romania with wins over Japan and Romania but fails to qualify for the World Cup finals later this year. All matches streamed in the United States via Recast PPV on the World Aquatics website with live scoring available courtesy of World Aquatics.

Georgia started quickly building a 2-0 lead in the first quarter before Tyler Abramson and Jake Ehrhardt responded to tie the game at 2-2. The teams continued to trade goals in the first quarter as Georgia took a 3-2 lead before Marko Vavic tied the game at 3-3 with 3:52 to play in the quarter. Ehrhardt would tie the game up again at 4-4 but Georgia had the final word, taking a 5-4 lead after eight minutes. Georgia opened up a 7-4 lead early in the second quarter but then Ohl started to chip away for Team USA. He scored two of the next three goals to make it an 8-6 game with 1:53 left in the first half. Georgia went back up by three but Ohl responded with his third goal of the period to make it 9-7 at intermission. 

Abramson scored early in the third quarter on a power play to make it a one goal game at 9-8 but Team USA would get no closer after that. Georgia scored the next three goals to surge in front 12-8 with 1:05 to go. Ohl came back with his last goal of the day to make it 12-9 headed to the fourth quarter. Georgia stayed hot in the fourth quarter, delivering the first two goals in the quarter to snag a 14-9 lead. Nicolas Saveljic and Max Irving scored two of the next three to trim the deficit to 15-11 with 4:04 to play. Georgia would tack on two more goals to secure the five goal victory.

Team USA went 6/17 on power plays and 2/2 on penalties while Georgia went 7/11 on power plays and 1/1 on penalties. 

Scoring - Stats
USA 12 (4, 3, 2, 3) R. Ohl 4, J. Ehrhardt 2, T. Abramson 2, D. Woodhead 1, N. Saveljic 1, M. Vavic 1, M. Irving 1
GEO 17 (5, 4, 3, 5) J. Saric 3, V. Dadvani 3, N. Shushiashvili 3, S. Pjesivac 2, S. Tkeshelashvili 2, L. Chikovani 1, B. Akhvlediani 1, R. Imnaishvili 1, G. Magrakvelidze 1
Saves - USA - B. Herzer 6, A. Weinberg 2 - GEO - G. Gvetadze 10
6x5 - USA - 6/17 - GEO - 7/11
Penalties - USA - 2/2 - GEO - 1/1