STANFORD, Calif. – Seven Stanford women’s water polo players earned All-America status when the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) announced its 2016 Division I All-America teams on Thursday morning.
Jamie Neushul led the way in landing on the first team for the first time while Jordan Raney and Kat Klass earned spots on the second team. Julia Hermann and Dani Jackovich received third-team recognition and Gurpreet Sohi and Anna Yelizarova were picked as honorable mention All-Americans.
A junior communication major and MPSF All-Academic pick, Neushul worked her way onto the list of the seven best in the country after securing honorable mention accolades in each of her first two seasons at Stanford. An All-MPSF first teamer, Neushul led the Cardinal with a career-high 49 goals in 2016 and finished fifth in the league in goals per game (1.69). She scored in 20 games, topped the team in both multi-goal efforts (15) and hat tricks (11) and was selected to both the All-NCAA Tournament first team and the All-MPSF first team.
An honorable mention All-American as a freshman a year ago, Raney hopped up to the second team in her sophomore season. Ninth on the team with 21 goals, including five multi-goal efforts and one hat trick, she was an All-MPSF first team pick along with Neushul. Raney was named to both the conference’s all-tournament team and the All-NCAA Tournament second team in addition to securing a MPSF All-Academic nod.
Raney was joined on the second team by freshman Kat Klass, who was also the 2016 MPSF Newcomer of the Year. The first-year player finished second on the team with 46 goals, the highest total for a Stanford freshman in three years. Klass was eighth in the MPSF in goals per game (1.59), scored in a team-high 24 contests and had 12 multi-goal efforts and seven hat tricks. A four-time MPSF/Kap7 Newcomer of the Week, she also tied for the team lead with five goals at the NCAA championships in Los Angeles.
The third team is highlighted by a pair of Cardinal earning their first All-America honors in Julia Hermann and Dani Jackovich. Hermann, a redshirt sophomore, was a revelation for the Cardinal this season and capped it off when she was named the best goalkeeper at the NCAA Tournament after totaling 31 saves in three games and posting a .646 save percentage. She recovered from an ACL injury which forced her to miss all of last season to rack up 244 saves, the most for Stanford in the last 15 years. Hermann finished the year with a 5.67 goals against average and played all but six quarters in the cage for the Cardinal, averaging 8.81 saves per game. A human biology major, she was also received MPSF All-Academic recognition.
Jackovich, a junior biomechanical engineering major, was fourth on the team with 32 goals this season and finished 25th in the conference in goals per game (1.10). She scored in 19 games, had eight multi-goal efforts and four hat tricks. The MPSF All-Academic awardee rattled the cage twice in the NCAA quarterfinals against UC Santa Barbara and added another in the semifinals against UCLA.
Seniors and 2016 MPSF All-Academic selections, Gurpreet Sohi and Anna Yelizarova rounded out Stanford’s honorees in receiving honorable mention All-America status. Sohi won her first All-America award in her final year on The Farm, one in which she co-captained the Cardinal to its seventh consecutive appearance in the NCAA final. The human biology major was third on the team in 2016 with 38 goals and 19th in the MPSF in goals per game (1.31). She finished her career with 87 scores and seven hat tricks.
Fellow senior Anna Yelizarova also landed on an All-American squad for the first time after scoring 29 times and finishing 14th in the conference in goals per game (1.45). A computer science major, she ended her four-year career with 135 goals, including 17 hat tricks, and a 1.42 goals per game average in 95 outings. Sohi and Yeliarova helped the Cardinal to a 102-12 record since 2013, including a pair of national championships.