Oct. 5, 2012

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford Women's Water Polo's golden trio of Annika Dries '14, Melissa Seidemann '13 and Maggie Steffens '16 joined four other current students and student-athletes earlier this week to recount their London experiences at this summer's London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games with the Bay Area media members.

The trio sat down with GoStanford.com as part of the Media Day events to discuss the road to London, the feeling of winning gold and the adjustment back to their college lives on The Farm.

Stanford will conclude its Olympic Heritage Celebration Saturday, Oct. 6 when the school will commemorate the achievements of current and past Cardinal athletes who have participated in the Olympian Games in a ceremony held at halftime of the Cardinal's 12 p.m. Homecoming football game against Arizona. More than 60 Olympians are confirmed to participate in the event including athletes from as far back as the 1956 Melbourne Games.

Dries, Seidemann and Steffens were among the 42 Stanford-affiliated athletes competing at the Olympic and Paralympics in London. Along with fellow Cardinal alumna Brenda Villa '03 and Jessica Steffens '10, the Cardinal trio helped pace the U.S. to its first women's water polo Olympic Gold Medal since the first Olympic tournament in 2000.

Dries, who will enter her junior season on The Farm in 2012-13, scored twice for the U.S. in its gold medal-winning run in London. At Stanford, Dries scored 100 goals over her first two seasons (2010-11) prior to taking the 2012 season off to train for the Olympics. In 2011 she paced the Cardinal with 65 goals, including five in Stanford's 9-5 national championship game win over California. For her efforts, Dries was named the 2011 Peter J. Cutino Award winner and ACWPC National Player of the Year.

Seidemann, who also took the 2012 season off to train for the London Games, has scored 164 goals for the Cardinal over her first three seasons (2009-11). The Walnut Creek native's performances have made her one of the dominant two-meter players in the game, and in 2011 she scored 51 goals to help lead Stanford to its second NCAA title and first since 2002. A three-time ACWPC All-American, Seidemann was also a Peter J. Cutino Award finalist in 2011.

Steffens deferred her freshman year at Stanford to train with the U.S. team in 2011-12. In London she led all players with 21 goals in the tournament and needed just 27 shots to score those goals, an incredible success rate of 77.8 percent. She matched a world record with seven goals in the U.S.' tournament-opening victory over Hungary and added five more in the gold medal-clinching win over Spain.

Together, the five Stanford women scored 37 of the 58 U.S. goals in London, a 58.6 percentage of the Americans' offensive output.

This spring Dries, Seidemann and Steffens will attempt to help the Cardinal to its third straight NCAA title and fourth overall.