STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford All-Americans Jamie Neushul and Jordan Raney have been named to the USA Water Polo Women’s Junior National Team roster for the FINA World Junior Championships in Volos, Greece next week. The United States, three-time champions at the tournament, will be looking to defend their 2013 crown at the biennial event.
Team USA begins the competition, which runs from August 17 to 23, with Mexico at 8:40 a.m. PT on Monday. Matches with Ukraine (7:20 a.m. PT) and Spain (3:00 a.m. PT) follow next Tuesday and Wednesday before the crossover round on August 20.
Raney and Neushul both earned spots on the ACWPC All-America honorable mention squad this past season. Raney, the MPSF Newcomer of the Year, set a league record by bringing home five MPSF/Kap7 Newcomer of the Week awards in 2015. Neushul, who was also an honorable mention All-American as a freshman in 2014, scored 28 times, including two hat tricks as part of nine multi-goal efforts.
Recent graduates and three-time NCAA champions, Ashley Grossman and Kiley Neushul helped the United States to gold at the 2013 FINA Junior World Championships, which also took place in Volos. For the tournament, Grossman scored 12 times while Neushul found the net on 11 occasions over USA's perfect 6-0 run to the gold medal. Rising senior Gurpreet Sohi also participated in 2013, helping Canada to a ninth-place finish.
It has been a busy summer for Stanford women’s water polo student-athletes across the globe. Makenzie Fischer, Ashley Grossman ’15, Kiley Neushul ’15, Melissa Seidemann ’13 and Maggie Steffens have led the USA Senior Women’s National Team to a 22-1 mark in the months of June, July and August, including gold medals at the Kunshan Cup in China, the FINA World League Super Final in Shanghai, the Pan Am Games in Toronto and the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.
In early July, the remainder of Stanford’s current squad, including Neushul and Raney, represented the United States at the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea and finished fifth. That crew went down to Southern California days after returning home and won gold at the 2015 US Open of Water Polo.
Stanford won 25 games for the ninth consecutive season in 2015 and made history on May 10 by becoming the first host institution to win the NCAA Women’s Water Polo Championship. The national crown was the fifth in program history and the Cardinal’s fourth in the past five seasons.