U.S. Defeats Spain in Olympic Tune-Up : Water polo: Favorites to win medals in Barcelona meet in first of four matches. Americans score 12-8 victory.

The men’s national water polo teams of the United States and Spain met Sunday at Corona del Mar High School, but the players weren’t the only ones getting wet.

A steady rain soaked the 300 spectators, who made a quick exit from the Marian Bergeson Aquatic Center to their cars in the parking lot after the United States defeated Spain, 12-8, in the first of a series of four matches.

Play was sloppy at times, but that is to be expected as the teams are just beginning their training regimens in preparation for this summer’s Olympics in Barcelona.

Spain, which will have the home-pool advantage, and the United States are expected to be favorites to win medals in Barcelona. Last summer in the semifinals of the FINA Water Polo World Cup, the United States scored in the final two seconds to defeat Spain, 6-5. The United States went on to defeat Yugoslavia to win its first major international title since it won the gold medal at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.

With that international breakthrough in hand, the U.S. team is looking to take another run at an Olympic title. The Americans won silver medals at the 1984 and ’88 Olympics.

With that end in mind, U.S. Coach Bill Barnett started seven-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week training sessions at the beginning of this month at Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor high schools. Barnett, who is also the coach at Newport Harbor, said so far the team has worked more on conditioning than on playing.

It showed Sunday.

“It shows we have a lot of work in front of us,” Barnett said. “We made a lot of mistakes, especially mental mistakes, and I don’t think that we adjusted very well to the different defenses they threw at us.”

Spain was playing without its best offensive player, Manuel Estiarte, and its No. 1 goalkeeper, Jesus Rollan, who are expected to join the team in time for the second match Wednesday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

The Spaniards took control early as Miguel Oca’s two first-quarter goals helped them to a 4-3 lead. Two of Spain’s goals came with six-on-five advantages, another after a defensive breakdown by the U.S. team with four seconds left.

Spain maintained the pressure until midway through the second quarter, when Salvador Gomez’s four-meter penalty shot was saved by U.S. goalkeeper Chris Duplanty. Gomez’s shot would have given Spain a 6-4 lead. Instead, the United States scored three consecutive goals to finish the quarter and take a 7-5 halftime lead.

“I think that was a big emotional lift for us,” Barnett said. “It seemed like our five-on-six defense got a lot tougher after that.”

Indeed. Spain had eight more man-up advantages the rest of the way and only scored one power-play goal. The United States outscored Spain, 8-2, in the second and third quarters to take an 11-6 lead going into the fourth. Duplanty, a former UC Irvine All-American, had 12 saves, including six in the second quarter. Duplanty is the backup to regular starter Craig Wilson, who announced the match.

Erich Fischer scored a team-high four goals for the United States. Dan O’Connell, Robert Lynn and Jeff Campbell, another former UCI All-American, each scored twice.

Oca scored three goals for Spain.