LA JOLLA, Calif. - UC San Diego women's water polo player Lucia Doak is in Spain to compete at the FINA World League Super Final, which runs Nov. 2-6 in Santa Cruz, Tenerife.

Doak, who was born in Wellington and calls Auckland her home, will be playing for New Zealand.

The 18^th edition of the Women's Super Final will see the best women's water polo teams in the world go head-to-head at the Real Club Nautico de Tenerife. The eight-team field features New Zealand competing alongside Australia, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the United States.

Tenerife is the largest and most populous of the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain.  

Doak, a sophomore at UC San Diego, was named to Team New Zealand's World League Super Final squad in early October of 2022.

The United States, the reigning World League Super Final champion, will be looking for its eighth consecutive and 15th overall title this year.

At the 2021 event in Athens, Greece, Hungary won the silver medal and Russia earned a bronze.

Doak is no stranger to international competition. In 2020, she was selected to the New Zealand Senior Women's Team as a reserve for an Olympic qualifying tournament. In 2019, Doak was named to the New Zealand-born 99 FINA World Juniors Championship squad that played in Portugal. She was also a member of the 2018 New Zealand-born 00 FINA World Youth Championship team that competed in Serbia.

Playing with the North Harbour Senior Team, she won three New Zealand National Interclub Women's Championship titles (2018, 2019, 2020). Doak captained the North Harbour U18 A team to gold at the Girls New Zealand Championship in 2020. The team also won titles in 2018 and 2019.

Doak finished her amateur career in New Zealand with three golds and one bronze at the NZ Senior National Interclub Championships, as well as one silver and one gold at the U21 New Zealand Nationals, three golds and a bronze at U18 NZ Nationals, one gold at U16 NZ Nationals, and two golds at U14 NZ Nationals.

Doak's favorite sports memory came when she was 15 and scored her first goal for New Zealand, a buzzer-beater against the United States Senior Women's team with Rachel Fattal defending her at the 2018 FINA Intercontinental Cup while playing with the NZ Development Team.

As a freshman for UC San Diego in 2022, Doak was third on the team with 53 points. Her 40 goals were the fourth-most of any Triton. She racked up six points during the Big West Tournament, scoring a goal and adding two assists against UC Davis in the quarterfinals and netting a pair of goals with one assist against Hawaii in the semifinals. Doak recorded a career-high six goals versus Bucknell in mid-March.

NEW ZEALAND FINA WORLD LEAGUE SUPER FINAL SCHEDULE
• Wed., Nov. 2, 6:40 a.m. PT vs. Spain (Group B Match 1)
• Thur., Nov. 3, 5:00 a.m. PT vs. Australia (Group B Match 8)
• Fri., Nov. 4, 3:20 a.m. PT vs. Hungary (Group B Match 11)
• Sat., Nov. 5, TBD (Classification and Semifinals)
• Sun., Nov. 6, TBD (Classification and Finals)

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About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions III and II and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 84 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.