BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Maddy Steere (Jr., Pascoe Vale, Australia/St. Catherine’s School) of the University of Michigan was among 15-women selected to the Aussie Stingers roster for the 2019 FINA Women’s World League Super Final in Budapest, Hungary, starting on June 4.
The Australian squad is comprised of athletes playing internationally and in the US college system, as well as local players who recently finished the 2019 OVO Australian Waterpolo League season.
The Aussie women will face China, Italy and the Netherlands in the preliminary rounds of the Super Final and they’re hoping for another chance to go head-to-head against the Olympic and World Champions, the United States, at the end of the competition.
Steere is coming off a junior season in which she racked up 55 goals, 42 assists, 97 points, 28 drawn exclusions, 25 steals and 12 field blocks in 32 games as the Maize & Blue claimed the program’s fourth consecutive Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Championship and berth to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship.
A 2017 Honorable Mention and 2018 Third Team Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America selection, she garnered All-Conference and All-CWPA Championship First Team honors in 2017, 2018 and 2019 on the way to recording 180 goals, 125 assists, 305 points, 93 drawn exclusions, 117 steals and 38 field blocks in 110 career games.
One of eight players in program history with 300 points and the second fastest to achieve the mark (110 games), Steere was named the 2019 CWPA Most Valuable Player based on a vote of the league’s seven Division I head coaches.
She is joined on the roster by two former Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) athletes as former Hartwick College standout Bronwen Knox and Michigan athlete Amy Ridge also made the roster.
The captain of the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Australia Olympic Women’s Water Polo teams and two-time Olympic Bronze Medalist (2008, 2012), Knox is the only player in the history of the Hartwick women’s water polo program to earn second team All-America honors from the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC). She helped guide the Hawks to a record of 56-20, two Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Northern Division titles, a CWPA Eastern crown and a sixth-place finish at the 2006 NCAA Division I Championship during her two seasons in Oneonta, N.Y.
Following her freshman campaign in 2005, she was the CWPA Northern and Eastern Championship Rookie of the Year, a first team CWPA Northern and Eastern selection, and was an ACWPC Honorable Mention All-America selection. In 2006, Knox led the country in scoring with 127 tallies and was later named Most Valuable Player of both the Northern Division and Eastern Championships. She also earned ACWPC All-Academic team honors and received second team All-America accolades.
A 2012 inductee to the Hartwick Hall of Fame, she totaled 229 goals, 57 assists, 286 points, 209 steals at Hartwick, including program single-season record 127 goals and 117 steals in 2006.
Ridge competed at Michigan during the 2016 season compiling 20 goals, 10 assists, 26 steals and 11 drawn exclusions in 38 games as the Wolverines captured the CWPA Championship. She returned to Australia following her one season at Michigan.
Australia will begin for the FINA World League Super Final next week as the squad will come together for a two-week staging camp that will involve training alongside the Hungarian women’s team in Montenegro and with the Spanish women’s team in Barcelona, beginning on May 19
FINA WORLD LEAGUE SUPER FINAL
When: June 4-9, 2019
Where: Budapest, Hungary
About: Australia is one of four teams in group A and will play Italy, China and the Netherlands in the group rounds:
- June 4 – 8:15pm (CEST) vs Italy
- June 5 – 3:00pm (CEST) vs China
- June 6 – 4:45pm (CEST) vs Netherlands
Following the group rounds there will be three days of finals action including quarter finals, semi finals and finals. Australia’s opposition on these days will depend on the results from the group stage.
Group B nations include – United States, Russia, Canada, Hungary
