Olympic Water Polo 2016: Men's Medal Winners, Scores and Results

At the 2016 Olympics, Croatia bounced back in a major way during the knockout rounds to earn a place in Saturday's gold-medal match in men's water polo after struggling in the latter stages of group play. The resurgence led to a rivalry clash with Serbia in the championship game. 

The medal round also featured a battle between Montenegro and Italy for the bronze medal. It marked the second meeting between the squads during the 2016 Summer Olympics, with the Italians scoring a narrow 6-5 victory during the preliminary round.

Let's check out all of the key details from Saturday's play at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, which will get updated after the final. That's followed by a recap of the action.

Saturday's Schedule and Results

Bronze: Montenegro vs. Italy

Italy emerged as the bronze medalists after a hard-fought battle with Montenegro. Neither team led by more than three goals, and the result was still in doubt during the final minutes.

The Italians went up 11-8 with just under six minutes left to play to seemingly put the game out of reach. Montenegro surged back, however, scoring a pair of unanswered goals to trim the lead to one with 1:57 to go on the clock in the fourth quarter.

Montenegro couldn't get back level, though. Matteo Aicardi came up in the clutch for Italy to preserve the win, as he netted his first goal of the match with 35 seconds left.

The Italian Olympic Team celebrated the result:

Christian Presciutti led the way for Italy with four goals on nine shots. Valentino Gallo was even more efficient, as he found the net three times on just four attempts. As a whole, the winning side converted on 50 percent of its attempts compared to 34.5 percent for Montenegro.

Mladan Janovic had three goals in a losing effort. Darko Brguljan and Aleksandar Ivovic added two apiece for the Montenegrins, who have made a habit of reaching the medal rounds of this event, only to fall short of the podium, as noted by the Team World Blog:

Meanwhile, the Italian men's team secured a medal for the second straight Olympics after winning silver in London four years ago.

Gold: Croatia vs. Serbia

Serbia outmuscled Croatia in an unsurprisingly physical match in order to claim gold and continue their ascent in men's water polo after winning bronze in the 2012 Olympics.

Although the match remained close for a vast majority of the fixture, it always seemed like the Serbians held a clear edge. They were stout defensively and prevented their rivals from ever really building up the necessary momentum to make a serious charge.

Dusan Mandic scored four goals to lead the offensive attack. Filip Filipovic and Dusko Pijetlovic each found the net twice as the team shot 45.8 percent in the contest.

The Team World Blog noted its the first Olympic title in the event for Serbia:

Brenton Vannisselroy of Radio Sport provided a look at the celebration:

Sandro Sukno had three goals on six shot attempts in the loss for Croatia. He didn't get much help from his teammates, however, as the rest of the squad went four of 24.

Ultimately, water polo isn't an easy sport to dominate given the close, physical nature of the games during tournament competition. That said, there's now no doubt Serbia is the team to beat after winning last year's World Championship title and backing it up with Olympic gold.