By Jason Bryant/Themat.com    NEW YORK-What started off as an incredible series of victories early in the tournament turned into series of heart-breaking losses for the U.S. Women's freestyle wrestling team in the finals of the World Championships of Freestyle Wrestling at Madison Square Garden.    The American women's contingent went 1-4 in gold medal finals. Kristie Marano beat Poland's Ewelina Pruszko 7-1 to win her second world championship, this one at 67kg.    It would be the only world title for the United States this year.    Both squads finished second in the team competition.     Former Soviet republic Georgia won the men's team title, edging the U.S. and Iran by a point. The U.S. beat Iran for second place, via the tiebreaker for second. The U.S. earned the most silver medals.    The women finished in a tie with Japan, but the Japanese won the tiebreaker with more gold medals.    In the men's competition, Cael Sanderson and Kerry McCoy lost close decisions and wound up with silver medals.    Sanderson fell 4-3 to Russian upstart Sajid Sajidov, giving up a tie-breaking takedown with 20 seconds remaining in the final period.    "I needed to get in the match from the start and wrestle with no mistakes and that didn't happen," Sanderson said.    Sanderson wasn't shaken by a stoppage late in the second period when both wrestlers were awarded two points after a video review by the officials.    "I didn't wrestle well and this was the time to wrestle well," Sanderson said.  McCoy lost a 4-1 overtime decision to Uzbekistan's Arthur Taimazov.    Trailing 1-0, McCoy scored a takedown that tied the bout with seven seconds remaining.    He gave up a three-point feet-to-back toss from the clinch early in the extra period.    "I was in between ideas and kind of lost my footing," McCoy said.    Despite not winning the gold on his home turf, McCoy was satisfied with his silver performance, at least for the time being.    "I'm real excited. I proved I can win at the international level and get the so-called monkey off my back. That's definitely a positive," McCoy said.    "We've done tremendously well. We had real high expectations," Marano said.    Back on the women's side of things, Marano used a series of takedowns and turns to take a 7-0 lead. She gave up a takedown late in the match.     Marano earned her seventh medal in her seventh world championship appearance.    Japan swept all five of their finals, beating the U.S. in three of those bouts.    Saori Yoshida beat Tina George in the finals at 55kg in a rematch of last year's final.    Yoshida scored four points on takedowns, including three straight in the second period that broke a 2-2 tie.    "Those were moves I wasn't preparing for, I wasn't as focused as I thought," George said.    Yoshida beat George 10-4 last year.    At 63kg, Kaori Icho of Japan topped American Sara McMann 4-3 in overtime. McMann clung to Icho's leg, but Icho kept moving and finally broke McMann's grip to get the gold medal-winning takedown.    Japan finished its championship run against the U.S. at 72kg as Kyoto Hamaguchi won her fifth world championship, beating Toccara Montgomery 4-1.    "I was trying to hold her (Hamaguchi) still. I was in a mold of defense," Montgomery said.    Patricia Miranda lost to now three-time world champion Irini Merleni of the Ukraine 5-4. Miranda couldn't turn Merleni for the potential go-ahead points in the final seconds.    "I'm a better wrestler when I'm offensively minded," Miranda said.    "I didn't do what I needed to do for my wrestling and it wasn't as much about anything she (Merleni) did."    The U.S. did qualify all four Olympic weights for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.    "Qualifying the four was a big thing for us. We came in hoping to show that this (women's wrestling) is for real," said U.S. women's national team coach Terry Steiner.    "Hopefully we can change some attitudes and some of the stigma out there about women's wrestling," Steiner said.    In other men's finals, 19-year-old Dilshod Mansurov of Uzbekistan beat Moldova's Ghenadie Tulbea 7-4 at 55kg. Mansurov used two key exposures to take a lead he never relinquished.    At 60kg, Arif Abdullaev of Azerbaijan topped Cuba's Yandro Quintana in a tightly contested 4-3 match.    Twenty-one year old Irbek Farniev of Russia knocked off former world champion Serafim Barzakov of Bulgaria 3-1 in overtime.    Bouvasia Saitiev of Russia and Mourad Gaidarov of Belarus traded two-point cautions at the start of the second period and overtime on botched clinch-attempts. Saitiev won his fifth world championship on criteria, with the least amount of passivity calls against him.    Georgian Eldar Kurtanidze broke the clinch at the start of the second period and scored with a three-point arm throw to give him enough of a cushion to top Iran's Ali Reza Heidari, in a matchup of previous world champions.    In other women's finals, Chiharu Icho of Japan topped Natalia Karamchakova 3-0 in the finals at 51kg.    At 59kg, Seiko Yamamoto won her fourth world championship, beating Russia's Natalia Ivashko 4-0.    The World Championships of Freestyle Wrestling drew a record crowd for a non-Olympic international wrestling event, drawing a total of 53,665.    The finals drew 12,757.