The Netherlands defeats U.S. women for the gold

BEIJING – The U.S. women’s water polo team is three for three in winning medals since the sport was introduced to the Olympics in 2000. Not bad except the medal has never been gold.

The Netherlands’ Danielle de Bruijn scored her seventh goal of the game with 26 seconds left to give the Dutch a 9-8 victory over the U.S. in the gold-medal game Thursday night.

The Americans missed two good shots in the last 10 seconds, including one off the post by Commerce’s three-time Olympian Brenda Villa.

The Americans played catch-up from the start, when they found themselves down 4-0 in the first five minutes.

It is the second silver medal for the U.S. In 2000, in front of a wild crowd in Sydney, the Australians scored with a second left to take the gold over the U.S. Four years ago in Athens the Americans surrendered a late two-goal lead to the Italians in the semifinals and settled for bronze.

After trailing 4-0 as De Bruijn scored three times, the U.S. stormed back for a 5-5 tie at halftime.

Jessica Steffens, whose father Carlos was a three-time All-American water polo player at California, scored the first two goals for the U.S. and Alison Gregorka, who, like Steffens, played for Stanford, scored to tie the score at halftime.

U.S. goalkeeper Betsey Armstrong seemed to start the game out of rhythm but midway through the first period she began using her long arms and elastic reach to flick away shots that had been flying into the goal.

The physical De Bruijn scored the first two goals of the third period to put the Netherlands up, 7-5. Villa closed the gap to 7-6 with a roaring one-hander and Gregorka tied the score at 8-8, but that only meant that De Bruijn could be the hero.

Australia won the bronze-medal game, 12-11, over Hungary in a shoot-out.

 diane.pucin@latimes.com