| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| File:Brenda
Villa.jpg Brenda Villa |
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| Women’s Water Polo | ||
Competitor for the  United
States |
||
| Olympic Games | ||
| Silver | 2000 Sydney | Team Competition |
| Bronze | 2004 Athens | Team Competition |
| Silver | 2008 Beijing | Team Competition |
| World Championships | ||
| Gold | 2003 Barcelona | Team Competition |
| Silver | 2005 Montréal | Team Competition |
Brenda Villa (born April 18, 1980 in Los Angeles, California) is an American world-class water polo player for the US National and Olympic teams.
Villa started swimming with a club team, Commerce Aquatics, at the age of six, and followed her brother into water polo at eight years old. She made the girls Junior Olympic Team while in high school . At Bell Gardens High School, Villa played with the boys' water polo team because her school didn't have a girls' team, and went on to become a 4-time 1st team All-League, 4-time 1st team All-C.I.F. and 4-time All-American.
Villa came to Stanford in 1998 as the program’s most heralded recruit. Redshirted in 1999 and 2000 to train for the Olympics, she scored 69 goals her freshman year (2001) and was named the NCAA Women’s Water Polo Player of the Year. In the three seasons Villa played for Stanford University, she scored 172 goals. In 2002 she led her Stanford team with 60 goals to win the NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship; they had finished second the previous season, the first year the competition was held. Villa was awarded the 2002 Peter J. Cutino Award as the top female college water polo player in the United States.
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Villa has been on Team USA since 1998. Although the shortest player on the US National Women's Water Polo Team at 5'4", Villa has been a prolific scorer at the international level. She scored 10 goals for Team USA at the 2003 Pan American Games, which qualified the team for the 2004 Summer Olympics. As a 20-year-old, she led the US team with nine goals at the Sydney Olympics, where the Americans took the silver medal. She had a team-high 13 goals to lead the US to gold at the 2003 FINA Water Polo World Championship. In June 2004, Villa scored the first goal in overtime, her third of the game, and another in a penalty shootout, to propel the US team past Hungary and win the gold medal at the Women's Water Polo World League Super Finals. She was the US women's team top scorer with 7 goals in 5 games at the 2004 Athens Olympics, earning a bronze medal. Villa was team captain of the 2005 US National Team coached by two-time Olympian Heather Moody, winning a silver medal at the FINA World Championship in Montreal.
In 2005, Villa became assistant coach of the women's water polo team at Cerritos College in Norwalk, California. The Falcons ended the season with a 21-11 record, a new school record for most wins in a season. She is now playing with the international club team Orizzonte “Geymonat” Catania (Italy).
In March 2007 Villa led the USA Women's National Waterpolo Team in Melbourne Australia at the 2007 FINA World Water Polo Championships. Villa scored a total of 11 goals throughout the whole tournament helping team USA achieve first place naming them the 2007 FINA World Champions.
In the 2008 China Summer Olympic games, she and the American team lost 8-9 in the Championship game to the Netherlands and took home the silver medal.
In June, 2009, Villa was named to the USA Water Polo Women’s Senior National Team for the 2009 FINA World Championships.
   | USA Today bio - USATODAY.com - Standing tall in the water |
| | Stanford bio - STANFORD OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE - Women's Water Polo |
| | Brenda Villa's U.S. Olympic Team bio - teamusa.org - The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404) |
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