STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford men's gymnast Akash Modi and Cardinal women's water polo's Maggie Steffens have been named 2016-17 Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medal Winners.
A Conference Medal is awarded annually to each member institution's outstanding senior male and female student-athlete based on the exhibition of the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
Modi, winner of the 2017 Nissen-Emery award given to the nation's top senior collegiate gymnast, was also the first four-time MPSF Gymnast of the Year. He was a 17-time All-American and collected CGA Gymnast of the Week accolades an NCAA-record 18 times during his career.
A five-time NCAA champion, Modi twice won both the all-around (2015, 2017) and the parallel bars (2016, 2017) in addition to taking the high bar title in 2016. As a senior he tallied 19 individual event victories against NCAA teams and finished third for Team USA at the AT&T American Cup. Modi traveled to Rio as an alternate with the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team.
Modi is a three-time member of both the MPSF and CGA all-academic teams and will begin his master's degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford in the fall.
A science, technology and society major with a 3.59 GPA, Steffens is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, two-time Olympic MVP and two-time FINA Women's Water Polo Athlete of the Year. She won her second ACWPC Player of the Year award last Monday after leading Stanford to its sixth NCAA championship in Indianapolis in mid-May. In the final against UCLA Steffens forced a Bruin turnover with 14 seconds left and scored the game winner with nine seconds remaining to power the Cardinal to its crown.
Also a two-time MPSF Player of the Year and two-time NCAA Tournament MVP, Steffens led Stanford with a career-high 65 goals this season, tied for the fifth-most in Stanford single-season history, and was third in the MPSF in goals per game (2.50). She scored in a team-high 23 games and had a personal-best 15 hat tricks as part of her 17 multi-goal performances.
Steffens, who is Stanford's only four-time, first-team All-American, finished her career third in program history and 20th in MPSF history in goals scored (229). In four seasons on The Farm, Steffens and the Cardinal went 102-9 overall, 23-1 in conference play and won three national championships. She finished her career with a goals per game average of 2.06 and was best when it mattered most, scoring 30 times in 12 career NCAA Tournament games (2.50 goals per game).
Late last week Steffens was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-America At-Large second team, becoming the first Stanford women's water polo player to receive academic All-America recognition from the organization. Steffens will earn her bachelor's from Stanford in science, technology and society with a concentration in innovations and organizations. On Sunday, Steffens helped the U.S. Women's National Team to its fourth straight gold medal at the FINA World League Super Final in Shanghai. She will be on campus next year to pursue her master's in management science and engineering.
