Cardinal At CSUB SaturdayCardinal At CSUB Saturday
Carl Solder
Women's Water Polo

Cardinal At CSUB Saturday

What's Ahead

No. 3 Stanford (16-2, 2-0) goes for its sixth consecutive win when it travels to No. 23 CSU Bakersfield (13-15, 0-2) for MPSF action at Hillman Aquatics Complex on Saturday, April 2 at 1 p.m.

Looking Back

Six different Cardinal scored and Stanford won its 2016 television debut on March 26 over No. 6 Arizona State, 8-5. Gurpreet Sohi, Madison Berggren, Kat Klass and Sophia Monaghan scored first-half goals to give Stanford a 4-1 lead at the break. The Cardinal extended its advantage to 7-2 in the third behind two scores from Shannon Cleary and another from Sohi. ASU made a late fourth-quarter push, scoring three times in the period.

Stanford Sweep

Stanford swept MPSF/Kap7 weekly honors on Tuesday when sophomore Katie Dudley was named the league’s player of the week and freshman Kat Klass its top newcomer.

The No. 3 Cardinal started off its 2-0 week with a 16-5 win at No. 13 UC Santa Barbara on March 22 thanks in large part to Dudley’s career-high five goals. The Stanford sophomore had scored two goals in a game six times in her career, but exploded for five against the Gauchos, scoring twice in the first, twice in the third and once in the fourth. Her output matched the Cardinal’s single-game high this season, tying Klass’ total from March 5 at San Jose State.

A two-time MPSF/Kap7 Newcomer of the Week award winner as a freshman a season ago, Tuesday’s honor was Dudley’s first conference player of the week accolade.

Klass scored four goals in Stanford’s wins last week. She tallied her team-leading seventh hat trick of the season in the Cardinal’s road victory at UCSB and added a 6-on-5 score in the second quarter of its 8-5 MPSF win over No. 6 Arizona State on Saturday. Klass, who leads MPSF freshmen in goals, is second on Stanford in that category, with 32 scores and a 1.78 goals per game average. Her goals per game mark is fifth in the conference.

It was her third MPSF/Kap7 Newcomer of the Week award this season.

MPSF Pick

Stanford collected 32 points and three first-place votes to top the 2016 MPSF Women’s Water Polo Coaches’ Poll, which was released by the conference on Jan. 7. USC was tabbed second with 31 points and three first-place votes while UCLA was third with 29 points and one first-place vote. California, Arizona State, San Jose State and CSU Bakersfield rounded out the preseason picks. The Cardinal has not lost an MPSF game since 2009, a stretch of 41 straight regular season conference outings. Its last league loss came at USC on April 18, 2009 (11-6).

Seeing The Stats

Stanford finds itself leading the MPSF in goals per game (12.83), ahead of USC (12.33) and UCLA (11.11), and fifth in goals allowed per game (5.28) behind USC (4.73), Cal (5.04), Arizona State (5.21) and UCLA (5.21). Individually, Jamie Neushul leads the Cardinal and is fourth in the conference in goals per game (1.83). Kat Klass is fifth (1.78), Anna Yelizarova is 12th (1.47), Gurpreet Sohi is 15th (1.39) and Dani Jackovich is 23rd (1.11). Julia Hermann’s 5.52 goals against average is sixth in the conference and her 8.55 saves per game are fifth.

Qualified

The USA Water Polo Women’s National Team punched its ticket to the 2016 Olympic Games behind the play of four Cardinal at the recently concluded Olympic Qualification Tournament in Gouda, Netherlands. Needing just a top-four finish to earn a berth in Rio, Stanford’s Makenzie Fischer, Kiley Neushul, Melissa Seidemann and Maggie Steffens led the United States to an undefeated 8-0 record at the event. Team USA outscored its opponents by a combined score of 123-35 and the Cardinal quartet accounted for nearly 50 percent of that scoring (57 combined goals).

Fischer scored multiple times in each of the eight games, including four hat tricks, and totaled 22 goals. Neushul had 17 and scored three or more three times, topping out with five in a 15-7 win over Greece on March 24. Steffens, the MVP of the 2012 Olympics, scored 13 and Seidemann, who won gold with Steffens at the 2012 Games in London, rattled the cage five times.

Rewind To 2015

The Cardinal won 25 games for the ninth consecutive season in 2015 and made history 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.

We got our rings and said goodbye to our 2015 team last night. Feeling lucky to have been a part of such an amazing group and looking forward to making new memories this upcoming season! Stanford Stanford Stanford! 🌲🌲❤️❤️

A photo posted by Stanford Women's Water Polo (@stanfordwwaterpolo) on Nov 15, 2015 at 10:30am PST

World University Games

Stanford had an early start to building a cohesive unit heading into this season. Over the summer, the Cardinal represented the United States at the World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea. After going 1-2-1 in pool play, the U.S. went 2-1 in its final three games to come in fifth out of the 10-team field. Jamie Neushul led the U.S. at the World University Games in goals, scoring 18 (2.6 per game) and freshman Kat Klass joined her in double figures rattling the cage 11 times (1.6 per game). Defensively, Raney contributed five field blocks in South Korea, while Cassidy Papa and Shannon Cleary added four each. Gabby Stone and Jamie Neushul had nine steals apiece, Dani Jackovich added seven and Kat Klass five.

Junior Worlds

Stanford All-Americans Jamie Neushul and Jordan Raney helped the United States repeat as FINA Junior World Champions with an undefeated run to the title in Volos, Greece in August. Team USA outscored its opponents 106 to 46 over the six games, which were capped with a 13-10 victory over Spain in the championship. Neushul, who served as captain for the United States, scored 14 goals, including three hat tricks, while Raney, the reigning MPSF Newcomer of the Year, added six.

In The Polls

Stanford remained third in the national rankings (92 points), behind No. 1 USC (100 points) and No. 2 UCLA (96 points) in this week’s CWPA Women’s Varsity Top 20 Poll. Hawaii (88 points) and Arizona State (82 points) round out the top five.