Brigitta Games is one of the 16 women called up to face China and the Netherlands in December's exhibition games as Team USA begins preparations for the 2020 Olympics. 
 
Brigitta is no stranger to the game. She comes from a southern California water polo family—both her brother and father played—and started swimming at age 4 for Brea Aquatics. At age 7 she joined NOVA aquatics and had her first water polo experience attending her brother's high school practice. Brigitta really enjoyed it, but since her mom wanted her to swim more, she didn't really get into water polo much right off the bat. 
 
But by age 13 when her family moved to Colorado, Brigitta finally got into water polo with gusto. Although her high school didn't have water polo, there was a year-round club in her area that traveled to Utah and New Mexico for tournaments. Soon Brigitta joined the Olympic Development Program after encouragement from her coach. Recalling her top moment from ODP Games, she says, "It was making the selection cups for the youth national team to go and train with them in Hungary."
 
Since Brigitta wanted to play in college—and since California is known for producing great water polo—she traveled back to her old stomping grounds to attend Golden West College in Huntington Beach. While there Brigitta received her first senior national team experience when Team USA Head Coach Adam Krikorian invited her to train with the squad. 
 
After one and a half successful years at Golden West, she was recruited by—and then transferred to—USC. There Brigitta found great success, going on to score 27 goals in her first season. Her highest goal output came her junior year as her team's second-leading scorer with 43 goals. Brigitta also collected a myriad of awards, notably being named an All-American and All-MPSF all three of her seasons at USC. She also was named to the All-NCAA Tournament team and was a part of the 2016 NCAA Championship team. While at USC she made her first appearance for the national team during the 2017 Holiday Cup.
 
Following her college career at USC, Brigitta was unsure of what she wanted to do.
 
"At the end of my college season I had two broken ribs, so I did National Team stuff that summer as much I could," she says. "I wasn't too sure about going abroad, and I decided a little bit later about going to Hungary." 
 
Brigitta originally wanted to join CN Mataro in Spain, but there wasn't an opportunity there, so she joined ZF Eger in Hungary. She was excited to go to Hungary and take in its culture and experience how much its people supported the sport. Following her season in Hungary, Brigitta was named to the 2018 FINA World League Super Final roster where she scored five goals—and as usual, Team USA won Gold with an 8-6 victory over the Netherlands. After spending a year in Hungary, Brigitta moved on to play for CN Mataro in Spain. She joined Mataro because she'd played for their coach when she was in high school and had a few USC teammates from Spain who knew the coach there as well. It was exciting for her to learn how the playing style in Spain is different than in Hungary. 
 
Brigitta also has set goals for the upcoming club season: "Personally, I want to work on a lot of my weaknesses and stay fit for the national team back home."
 
Now Brigitta is glad to be back with the women on Team USA for the upcoming games against China and the Netherlands "even though it's for a short time."
 
"Hopefully we can improve as a team and become more cohesive," she said, adding that. she wants to try to make rosters, get travel trips, and become a better player and person and to help my team as much as I can."