CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z - A quartet of current and former Stanford women's water polo stars helped lead the USA to its first FINA World Cup gold medal since 1979 with a 6-3 victory over Australia Saturday.

Current standouts Melissa Seidemann '12 and Annika Dries '13 were part of a USA squad that also included former Cardinal stars Brenda Villa '03, the USA captain, and Lolo Silver '09, who was the USA's leading scorer with 11 goals in the competition.

Dries and Silver each found the back of the cage in the final, helping the USA to a commanding 6-0 halftime lead. Silver converted a five-meter penalty to close the first-period scoring while Dries tacked on the fifth U.S. goal at the 3:46 mark of the second period.

Although the U.S. was held scoreless in the second half, the Cardinal players helped the defense limit Australia to just three scores, avenging its earlier pool play loss to the Australians and securing the gold medal.

Along with Silver's 11 goals, Dries scored seven while Seidemann and Villa each netted a pair of goals.

The performances of this Cardinal quartet were key in a 5-1 U.S. run in the tournament which saw the American side outscore its opponents by a 63-42 margin.