LOS ANGELES —The Santa Barbara legacy continues for the U.S. Women’s National Water Polo Team as it prepares to travel to Japan for the Tokyo Olympics next month to vie for a third consecutive gold medal.
The 13-member team announced Wednesday in Los Angeles includes Paige Hauschild, a 2017 graduate of San Marcos and first-team All-American at USC in 2019, and Jamie Neushul, a 2013 graduate of Dos Pueblos and first-team All-American at Stanford, where she graduated in 2017.
In addition, first-time Olympian Amanda Longan of Moorpark, a 2019 first-team All-American at USC, was a member of the 805 Santa Barbara Water Polo Club as she was learning the game as a youngster.
And community youth coaches like Cathy Neushul of 805 are the “real heroes” who “instill those values of discipline and hard work and taught them the fundamentals,” Team USA coach Adam Krikorian said. “It makes our job so much easier.”
“What they’ve done there (in Santa Barbara) to continue to develop these athletes has had a direct impact on the success of our national team,” Krikorian added.
That success has been demonstrated in, now, five successive Olympics with contributing Santa Barbara players: a bronze medal in 2004 with Santa Barbara High’s Thalia Munro; a silver in 2008 and a gold in 2012 with Santa Barbara’s Kami Craig; and a gold medal in 2016 again with Craig — one of the game’s all-time greats — as well as Sami Hill of Dos Pueblos and Kiley Neushul of Dos Pueblos.
And this 2021 Team USA is fresh from a gold medal won Saturday at the FINA Women’s Water Polo World League Super Final in Athens, Greece.
Kiley Neushul, a four-year All-American at Stanford, where she led the Cardinal to three NCAA national championships, decided to retire from the national team after the Olympic postponement from 2020.
Her sister Jamie Neushul is happy to take up the family participation.
“I’m super excited to be doing it for the first time,” Jamie said. “I look up to my older sister as a role model quite a bit. She’s a large part of the reason I wanted to do this process. It feels really good. I couldn’t feel more prepared.”
Hauschild is also excited.
“Obviously this has been a dream of mine for a really long time and to be named to this team is such an honor,” Hauschild said. “I’m super, super excited to represent the USA and to be beside these girls.”
And Longan praises her 805 participation, recommended by her high school coach in Moorpark.
“If it weren’t for the coaches that were over there and the level that those girls played at, especially because I started playing so late, I would not have developed as quick,” Longan said. “I kind of needed to play catch up to all these girls that were going to top college programs and joining national teams.”
Hauschild and Jamie Neushul are also thankful of the youth training, and Cathy Neushul’s role as coach.
“Cathy Neushul was one of my primary coaches when I was a little itty bitty water polo player to when I graduated from high school,” Hauschild said.
“It’s been a long journey, a lot of coaches, and I’m super thankful for the Santa Barbara water polo community and all the people that help support us and teach us everything we know and helped us become better people along the way. It’s a really special place.”
One of the team leaders, along with captain Maggie Steffens, is goalie Ashleigh Johnson, who had 51 saves in the gold medal-winning 2016 Olympic team, and was the MVP of the 2019 FINA World Championships in leading Team USA to gold
Johnson said she well knows the value of a top defensive player like Hauschild, and of the water polo-nurturing Neushul family.
“The connection between the goalie and the defender is one of the most important connections in the pool, because we are the orchestrators of the defense, and anything she says I’m repeating and anything she’s doing I’m communicating to the rest of the defense,” Johnson said of Hauschild.
“So it starts and it ends with us, and that’s really cool. (Hauschild) is a huge part of our team and I’m excited to see what she does in the future.”
Asked if she welcomes Jamie Neushul to the team, Johnson said:
“100 percent! Yeah! Jamie brings a light to our team like no one else can. It’s just cool to see the legacy that that family has within our sport, and that continues through Jamie and that will continue through (youngest sister) Ryann, and Kiley carries it around the world.”
Johnson said she loves to stay with the Neushul family in Isla Vista, and was very close to Kiley when she was on Team USA. She said she admires the Santa Barbara community “100%.”
“Whenever I go back, I always make sure I’m with Peter and Cathy at the pool or surfing,” Johnson said. “They’ve introduced me to so many new things through the water polo community there, but also just enjoying Santa Barbara. It’s a lifestyle. And water polo runs through that. Everyone’s involved.”
Longan seconds that about Santa Barbara.
“The families are all super supportive,” Longan said. “The Santa Barbara families are all super close. They welcomed my family, who was from out of town for a distance.”
With high expectations for this team, Hauschild said it’s important to take a “game-by-game” approach.
“We do have a really talented group and a really dedicated competitive group,” she said. “So I think we can do anything we can set our minds to. Hopefully that’s what we end up with, a gold medal.”
And with all the coaching, from youth clubs to high school to the national team, credit certainly goes to such athletes as Hauschild, Neushul and Longan, Krikorian said.
“Each one of them, as great as the program is, each one of them, Amanda, Jamie, Paige, Kiley in the past, Kami Craig, each one of them still has to make it themselves. The reality is they earn their spots, and they earn it through the work. They have a choice every day, and they’ve chosen to put in the effort and dedicate themselves to this sport.”
The Tokyo Olympics runs from Friday, July 23 to Sunday, Aug. 8. The women’s water polo competition is set to begin on July 24.