BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Former Salem International University standout and French Olympian Michal Izdinsky scored three times, dished out a trio of assists, grabbed two steals and field blocked a shot in 18:31 of playing time as France swamped the United Kingdom/Great Britain, 13-4, at the Taipei Songshan Sports Center in Taipei City to reach the semifinals of the 29th Summer Universiade/University Games.
The victory places France into a 4:30 p.m. showdown against Serbia on Monday, August 28, with a spot in the University Games title game on the line. Further, the win guarantees a Top Four finish in the 16-team (Taiwan/Chinese Taipei, France, South Korea, Great Britain, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands, Argentina, Canada, South Africa, Hungary, Serbia, the United States, Russia, Japan, Romania) tournament field for France.
Italy will face Russia in the other semifinal.
France, which claimed the Pool A title to earn a matchup, improves to 5-0 at the tournament behind the play of Izdinsky.
Tied for the position of the second leading scorer at the tournament behind teammate Charles Cannone (20 goals) with Radomir Drasovic of Serbia as the duo have both netted 15 goals, Izdinsky now has 15 goals and four assists. He opened the tournament with four goals in a 17-5 defeat of the United Kingdom/Great Britain on Friday, August 18, prior to netting another four goal output in a 27-0 win versus host Chinese Taipei/Taiwan on Sunday, August 20. In the final game of Pool A competition, Izdinsky scored twice in 20:50 of playing time as France dealt the Republic of Korea/South Korea a 16-8 defeat. Squaring off with the Republic of South Africa on Wednesday, August 23, to reach the quarterfinals, Izdinsky scored twice and added an assist in 22:01 of playing time as France claimed a 13-5 victory.
The French never trailed against Great Britain as the team outscored their English Channel neighbors by counts of 4-1, 2-1 and 6-1 in the first three quarters, respectively, prior to the teams exchanging single goals in the fourth quarter.
Izdinsky started his offense with 6:41 left in the first quarter as he lined in a five-meter penalty shot to place France out in front, 2-0. Following another penalty shot by Canonne at 4:02 to make the score 3-0, Izdinsky went back on the attack by finding Canonne with an assist on a man-up strike at 2:05 to inflate the margin to 4-0.
Leading 4-1 after a British marker in the closing moments of the first quarter, Izdinsky factored in the next two goals as he buried an action shot at 5:54 of the second quarter and found Canonne for a counter-attack tally at 3:48 to raise the bar to 6-1. Similar to the first quarter, Britain found the back of the cage in the waning moments of the quarter to set the scoreboard at 6-2 at the break.
Following another successful five-meter penalty shot by Canonne at 7:36 of the third quarter to make it 7-2, Izdinsky found Canonne with an assist for an action goal a 6:40 to pad the spread to 8-2. The teams then exchanged scoring blows prior to Izdinsky finishing off his day by denting the twine with a frozen rope action shot with 1:36 remaining on the clock to push France out to a 10-3 lead.
The French closed out the third quarter with two more goals and exchanged markers with the British in the fourth quarter for the 13-4 final score.
A 2013 Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) Division II All-America to go along with Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Scholar-Athlete Outstanding honors, Izdinsky established a Salem International single season record with 106 goals in his season with the Tigers.
This marks the second major event of the Summer for Izdinsky who helped lead France to a 14th Place finish at the 2017 FINA World Championship in Budapest, Hungary, during last July.
In addition, the University Games are the fourth international tournament since January 2016 for Izdinsky as he was a member of the 2016 French Olympic Team which fell to Montenegro (7-4 L, August 6), Italy (11-8 L, August 8) and Spain (10-4 L, August 10) prior to shocking Croatia (9-8 W, August 14) in Rio de Janeiro. He finished the Olympics with a one-for-11 shooting performance with two assists as he went zero-for-one with an assist against Montenegro, zero-for-three mark against Italy, zero-for-two mark against the United States and zero-for-three versus Spain prior to connecting on a goal to aid his homeland versus Croatia.
Further, Izdinsky scored two goals and dished out five assists to lead the French National Team to a Ninth Place finish at the 2016 European Water Polo Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, on January 10-23.
