Sept. 27, 2000

SYDNEY, Australia - Stanford women's water polo players Ellen Estes (Novato, CA) and Brenda Villa (Bell Gardens, CA) helped lead the U.S. women's water polo team to the silver medal in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. This is the first ever women's water polo in the Olympics.

In the championship game, the U.S. fell just short to Australia 4-3, as the hosting team scored a goal with :01 second remaining to win the gold. Villa had tied the game at 3-3 with :13 seconds remaining with her second goal of the game.

The U.S. reached the finals by going 4-1-1. The championship run started out with a 6-4 win over Holland, in which Villa posted her first goal. Then, the U.S. tied Canada 8-8 before defeating Russia 7-5. A 7-6 loss to Australia followed, with Estes tallying her first goal and Villa picking up two scores as well. In a 9-6 win over Kazakhstan, Villa exploded for four of the goals, enabling the team to advance to the semifinals, where the U.S came away with a 6-5 win over Australia.

Villa was the leading scorer for the U.S. with nine goals, while Estes scored once in the games.

The 2001 Stanford water polo season opens up on Feb. 10-11 with the Stanford Invite. The Cardinal is coming off of a season where it went 28-5 overall (8-1 in MPSF) and finished third in the national championships. The Cardinal's final record was the best in the history of the sport at Stanford.

Both Villa and Estes redshirted the 2000 season to train with the National Team. Villa has four years of eligibility remaining while Estes has two years left. As a sophomore, Estes was a first team All-American and the conference Player of the Year. She broke the school record for goals scored in a single season with 93.