Susan has had success in swimming from the beginning as an 7 year old in BCSSA, qualifying for Provincials each year, frequently with PQT's (Provincial Qualifying Times - previous years top 8 times)

Susan started playing water polo with the North Vancouver Cruisers Summer Swim Club and rapidly found that she could combine the game sense skills she had learned in Soccer and Basketball to her swimming speed for a winning experience. Her brother James was her mentor and teacher then and still is her sounding board and resource. ( James played for Pacific Storm under Michel Roy, and is the current Pacific Storm coach for the Cadet girls program gold medal winners in 2004 Nationals where he was named MVC )

By the time she was 15 she was attending National team camps and played for Canada at NORAMS. She was selected to the Junior National team to compete at the 1996 Pan Ams in Cuba, where Canada finished second and qualified for 1997 Junior Worlds. 

The Canadian team placed 5th at the 1997 Junior Worlds.

The next year promised great things, the chance to win Pan Ams over the Americans and qualify for Messina 1999 Junior Women's Worlds, unfortunately while Susan was centralized in Montreal that summer she broke her right hand while scrimmaging against a men's team. She came home to have her hand set and put in a cast, but returned to the team to be in Cuba, where the team finished 2nd to the USA with Susan sitting on the sidelines doing stats.

1999 was a remarkable year with the Junior team finishing 2nd in Messina to the Australians, and four of the Juniors being invited to join the Senior team, which had qualified for the 2000 Olympics, for a year of centralized training in Montreal and the hope of being selected for a spot on the first women's water polo team at the Olympics. Susan gave up her athletic scholarship at the University of Hawaii to stay and train in Montreal. After being left off of the selection for the original 11 person roster, Susan attended Junior Nationals in Winnipeg and was the dominant player leading her Pacific Storm team to the National championship and being selected as the MVP. The gamble paid off, Susan was one of the two members added to the team when the IOC agreed to increase the number of players for women's teams from 11 to the normal 13 players per team for the 2000 Olympics.

2000 Olympics were a difficult time for the coaches and the players and Susan as with the other non-starters were given limited opportunity to play , but when they did play they made a valuable contributions  outscoring, on a goal per minute played basis, their more senior teammates, but the expectation was that they would medal and  unfortunately they didn't.

2001 was a year of adjustment, with the National coaches working to develop a system using all the players and it worked as the team won the bronze medal at 2001 Worlds in Japan. Susan was also a member of the 2001 and 2003 work championship teams and the 2002 world cup squad.

2002 saw a change in the coaching staff and the first Commonwealth Games Water Polo Tournament with Canada's team finishing 2nd to Australia in March under interim coach Pat Oaten and then coming back to place 3rd at FINA CUP in Perth Australia in December.

Susan, as did a number of her Canadian teams, played professionally in the Division 1 league in Italy in October of 2002 and the spring of 2003. 2003 involved Nationals on the Canadian scene, with the Pacific Storm winning Senior Women's Nationals for the first time. It was the more sweet that they did it at home in Watermania , Richmond and Susan was named MVP. Internationally, the national team was involved in both Worlds and the Pan American Games ( the continental qualifying tournament for Athens). World's in Barcelona where the team came a disappointing 4th losing to Russia, was an event where they had to train through it , yet had to perform. In Pan Americans the team lost the gold medal game to the Americans.

2004 the team qualified for the Olympics in Italy in February, eventually placing 4th behind Russia.

Good luck to Susan and the rest of her teammates this August!