THE SEOUL GAMES : Water Polo : U.S. Defeats Greece, 18-9; Hungary Next

The U.S. water polo team stayed alive in its drive for the gold medal with a crucial 18-9 victory over Greece at the Olympic Indoor Swimming Pool Monday afternoon, getting a supreme effort from driver Jody Campbell.

He scored 4 goals despite getting hit in the head so hard in the middle of the first quarter by Greece’s Kyriakos Giannopoulos that Campbell doesn’t remember playing the rest of the game.

Campbell left the pool with members of the medical staff to be checked out for a mild concussion.

The United States is considered one of the favorites, consistently one of the world’s best teams. Greece isn’t ranked. But the United States was wary of an upset. It was an early upset, a loss to Spain, that put the Americans in this precarious position. A loss to Greece would have eliminated the United States from medal contention.

The United States has a 3-1 record in Group B with a game to play on Tuesday, against a strong team from Hungary, before the field is pared to four teams for the medals round. Two teams will advance from both Group A, which includes the highly regarded Soviet team, and two from Group B, which also includes Yugoslavia.

The competition here was supposed to come from the Soviet Union, which is playing in the other pool in the early rounds, and from Yugoslavia, the team that beat the United States for the gold medal in 1984. The United States has never had trouble beating Greece.

But, as veteran U.S. 2-meter man Terry Schroeder said, that’s what the Americans thought about Spain.

“We beat Yugoslavia in the opening game, and then I think we heaved a sigh of relief,” Schroeder said. “It’s the same old thing about the danger of having games back-to-back after a big victory like that. As much as we talked about not letting down, and as hard as we tried not to do that, I think we lost some intensity.

“We need to get that intensity back. We should be playing better defense and giving (goalie Craig Wilson) more help. We’re going to have to knock some people down. They’re getting too much time. . . . But it shows you how valuable Craig is in the hole. That shows you how good he is.”

Though Wilson, one of the best goalies in water polo and one of the holdovers from the 1984 team, allowed 9 goals, he also made 11 saves in another strong game. Wilson has had at least 10 saves in all 4 of the U.S. games.

Greece’s goals were offset by the high-scoring U.S. effort. James Bergeson of Newport Beach and Alan Mouchawar, former teammates at Stanford, added 3 goals each for the United States. Five of the seven starters on the U.S. Olympic team are holdovers from the team that had to settle for the silver in 1984. And they’re not going to be satisfied with anything but gold this time around.

“This is the best team the U.S. has ever put in the pool,” Schroeder said, and he’s been around for 10 years.