Throughout her life, freshman attacker Itziar Almeda has dominated the world of water polo. Now, she takes her talents to the pools at ASU.
Almeda made the long journey from Barcelona, Spain, to Tempe. However, her journey with water polo began long before her trek to the desert.
Representing Spain on numerous occasions, she takes great pride in her international accomplishments. Most recently at the World Aquatics Women's U18 World Championships in Chengdu, China, she scored 16 goals on the way to gold, beating Greece in the title match 11-9.
"I've been playing with the national team for four years now, and I still enjoy it like the first time," Almeda said. "I think it's the best thing ever for someone to represent their own country."
This experience also helps her bring new perspectives to her Sun Devil team, with each country having its own unique style of playing the game.
Almeda said Spain isn't the biggest or strongest national team. Because of this, she learned more technical skills that helped her contribute to the attack.
"What I brought here was vision and being calm whenever the game is getting difficult," Almeda said. "(Also) some skills that we learn when we're kids that here, they don't (learn) as much."
Junior center Sophie Shorter-Robinson loves the experience and talent that Almeda brings to the squad. The fact that unlike most players on ASU's roster, Almeda is left-handed, helps her shine even more.
"Obviously, having a left-hander is a huge advantage because a lot of field players are right-handed," Shorter-Robinson said. "For me, it's been great to have both (right-handers and left-handers) on the sides."
The other option is junior attacker Millie Quin, who leads the team in goals with 75 and adds 18 assists. Almeda is right behind her with 55 goals and 31 assists.
Notably, one of the trickiest parts about playing at ASU is its conference schedule. Despite only boasting seven teams, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) holds four of the top five teams in the women's water polo rankings. Stanford, USC, UCLA, Cal and No. 10 Indiana are all ranked above ASU, who sits at No. 14. Only San José State sits below the Sun Devils at No. 15.
Almeda loves the competition. Being able to play against some of the top players in the country and the world is a great way to get better.
"There are so many teams in our conference that have Olympians on their team, so you can just learn and practice against them," Almeda said. "I think it's better to lose but play against the good teams and really improve and learn from your mistakes than just beat everyone by 10."
Something that can be stressful no matter the opponent is moving halfway across the world to attend university. For Almeda and the other international athletes on the water polo team, it has been less of a struggle. Originally an international student herself at ASU, head coach Petra Pardi understands the challenges of moving to a new country.
"Because of how international our team is, it's part of our team culture, and they do a really good job of looking after each other," Pardi said.
With just two matches left in the season, the Sun Devils have a hard task of traveling two weeks in a row to Cal and USC. Almeda said the team is going in with nothing to lose and aiming to play their hardest.
"We don't have any pressure, they're the ones who have pressure," Almeda said. "I think we can just do as good as we can and just try to not do the same mistakes that we did on the other games."
Edited by Henry Smardo, Sophia Braccio and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at aldeutsc@asu.edu and follow @AlanDeutschend3 on X.
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Alan is a sophomore studying sports journalism. This is his second semester with The State Press. He has also worked at Blaze Radio.
