Stanford senior Melissa Seidemann was named winner of the Peter J. Cutino Award on Saturday night by the Olympic Club of San Francisco, which gives the award to the best collegiate water polo player of the year.
Stanford junior Annika Dries and freshman Maggie Steffens were two other finalists for the award along with USC’s Monica Vavic. This marks the third consecutive year the Cutino Award has gone to a Stanford player after Dries took the award in 2011 and current sophomore Kiley Neushul won it in 2012.  Seidemann was named a finalist for the award in 2011.
Seidemann, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist, led Stanford in scoring this year with 75 goals as the Cardinal made it to the NCAA title game but lost a heartbreaker in overtime to USC. The two-meter player ended her Cardinal career with 239 career goals, tied for the most in Stanford history along with Lauren Silver ’09. Seidemann was also named to the 2013 All-MPSF first team and the National Championship All-Tournament team.
Contact Jana Persky at jpersky ‘at’ stanford.edu.