Trio of Gauchos Earn All-Big West Honors

IRVINE, Calif. — The Big West announced its 2025 Women’s Water Polo all-conference teams Friday, honoring three UC Santa Barbara student-athletes. Annie Kuester earned a spot on the All-Big West Second Team, Imani Clemons earned All-Big West Honorable Mention, and Bella Mady was named to the conference’s All-Freshman team. This is the first time since 2019 that the Gauchos have had three all-conference honorees, and this year’s honors are the first in each Gaucho’s respective careers.
 
One of Santa Barbara’s captains and the focal point of their attack this season, Kuester started the season hot and just never cooled off, scoring 60 goals on the year, the first Gaucho to reach that number since Sarah Snyder scored 66 in 2019. Kuester opened the season with four consecutive hat-tricks, then tallied a five-goal game against Cal State Fullerton on Feb. 1, more than half of her team’s goals in the 9-8 win. She was just as unstoppable in conference play, scoring at least once in each of Santa Barbara’s Big West matches, including three at UC San Diego, three at Cal State Fullerton and five at UC Irvine, a haul which earned her the title of Big West Player of the Week. On the year, Kuester finished eighth in the conference in total goals and 10^th in total points (goals plus assists), with 81.
 
Clemons was just as dominant as Kuester in conference action this season, tying her senior classmate with 19 goals in Big West games to share the title of Gauchos’ leading conference scorer. The center came alive down the stretch, scoring four goals in each of the final regular-season games, two of eight hat-tricks on the season. In March, she scored eight goals in three days with three against Hawai’i and a career-best five against UC Davis. Earlier in the year, she also tallied four against Indiana. Her 50 goals on the season make 2025 the first time since 2013 that two Gauchos have reached the half-century mark in the same year.
 
They nearly had three members in the 50-goal club this year, as Mady put together a tremendous rookie campaign, tallying 45 goals in her first year of collegiate water polo. The 45 tallies are the most by a UC Santa Barbara freshman since Samantha Murphy and Jessie Porter’s excellent 2013 seasons, where Murphy scored 78 and Porter 51. In 2025, Mady’s 45 goals were the second-most by any Big West rookie, behind only Freshman of the Year Ema Vernoux, of Hawai’i. Mady made a big splash early, scoring four goals in each of her first two games as a Gaucho and recording at least one goal in each of her first nine collegiate games, including four hat-tricks in that span. She tallied the first five-goal game of her career against Villanova, then announced herself to the conference with a three-goal game against Long Beach State in what was her first-ever Big West match. Mady ended the season on a five-game scoring streak, including a goal on her Big West Championship debut in the quarterfinal against UC Irvine.