Gilchrist, Musselman are world champs

Little girls growing up in aquatics in Newport Beach do not have to look far for a role model.

Kaleigh Gilchrist and Maddie Musselman are great examples of perseverance and hard work.

Gilchrist is an NCAA champion in women’s water polo who continues on at the top of the sport, all while maintaining a career as a professional surfer. Musselman also has risen to the pinnacle of water polo and, at 17 years old, is using her status as the youngest player on the U.S. senior national team not as an excuse but as a motivation.

These two athletes both have dreams of making their first Olympic team next summer in Rio de Janeiro.

For now, however, they are world champions.

Gilchrist and Musselman each contributed as the U.S. senior national women’s water polo team won the gold at the FINA World Championships on Aug. 7, downing the Netherlands, 5-4, in the title game in Kazan, Russia.

“Winning was awesome,” Gilchrist wrote via email from Nicaragua, where she is currently on a surfing trip. “To be able to call ourselves world champions is special ... We had a rocky start and lost to Italy in our bracket, but after the loss we really came together as a team and it was fun to be a part of. The passion and teamwork we displayed the last few games is what playing the sport is all about.”

After the loss to Italy, Musselman said that U.S. Coach Adam Krikorian told the team that every game would be a gold-medal game. Team USA responded well to its first major loss of 2015, beating Japan, 17-2, before advancing to the quarterfinals with a 12-7 win over Hungary. Team USA made the semifinals with an 8-5 victory against Spain, which featured a goal from Gilchrist, then the final after beating Australia, 8-6. Musselman scored in that game.

She also scored in the championship match, on a counterattack, to give Team USA a 2-1 lead in the second quarter. The Americans held on for the gold, and goalkeeper Ashleigh Johnson made 12 saves en route to match MVP and tournament top goalie laurels.

It’s been a busy summer for Musselman, who de-enrolled from Corona del Mar High in March to train full-time with the national team and continues in online school through Laurel Springs. On Wednesday, she announced that she has committed to play for UCLA in college. She was on vacation in Lake Arrowhead earlier this week, and is headed to Mexico on Sunday for continued vacation with family.

Musselman said she ultimately just felt like she belonged at UCLA, where her older sister Alex will be a senior goalie this year. Maddie also showed that she belonged at the FINA World Championships, her biggest tournament to date with the senior national team.

“As big as this tournament is, of course I had those nerves in the beginning,” said Musselman, who was the Daily Pilot Newport-Mesa Player of the Year as a CdM sophomore in 2013-14. “I think those nerves kind of went away, and I was really more thinking that I had to prove myself to the team and the world, that I can be a part of this team and contribute in a positive way.

“I think [being the youngest on the team] just motivates me even more. Age is just a number, as a lot of people say, and that’s how I think about it. It’s more what I’m able to do, physically and mentally.”

Winning the FINA World Championships meant a lot to both local players. Gilchrist, who graduated from Newport Harbor High in 2010 and USC in 2014, helped the Trojans win the national championship in 2013. Yet, representing your country is another special honor.

The U.S. women are now reigning Olympic, World, World Cup, World League and Pan American champions

“I think us being Americans and always striving to be the best, we often times don’t realize how much we have accomplished,” Gilchrist wrote. “After tournament wins, we usually look right into the next challenge and for us that is going to be Olympic qualifiers in March [in the Netherlands, where Team USA needs to finish top four to qualify]. But taking a second to look back and realize the success our program has had in the past few years is cool. However, we know that makes us have an even bigger targets on our back and teams want to beat us even more.”

Gilchrist and Musselman came on the national team at about the same time and have become good friends, despite their more than six-year age difference. The same is true with recent Laguna Beach High graduate Makenzie Fischer, who is headed for Stanford.

“It’s been really fun growing and playing with Maddie and ‘Fish,’” Gilchrist wrote. “They have improved so much. It’s really cool to see, plus they push me everyday in practice to become better. I think we are all slowly but surely fitting into our roles on the team. Out of the pool I like to be fun and try and lighten things up a bit. In the pool, I like to set people up and have a decent sense for the game.”

Having two players from Newport Beach on the 13-member senior national team roster may be unusual, but it is a credit to the work put in by both Gilchrist and Musselman.

And they don’t plan on stopping now.

“There’s so much more we can do,” Musselman said. “We still have to get better and improve every single day ... [but winning gold] is definitely something special to be a part of. Not a lot of people get to do it. We couldn’t have done it without every single person on the team. It was really memorable, and one of the coolest experiences that I’ve had so far.”