Trojans bounce back against Pepperdine


In its Mountain Pacific Sports Federation opener, USC’s No. 4 men’s water polo team got back on track with a 21-5 win over No. 11 Pepperdine after finishing fourth in the NorCal Classic last weekend. The Trojans extend their win streak against the Waves to 15, having not lost to them since 2005.

West Kostas Best Kostas · Senior driver Kostas Genidounias scored two goals against Pepperdine on Saturday. With this effort, he moved into a second-place tie for most goals scored in USC history. - Christopher Roman | Daily Trojan

West Kostas Best Kostas · Senior driver Kostas Genidounias scored two goals against Pepperdine on Saturday. With this effort, he moved into a second-place tie for most goals scored in USC history. – Christopher Roman | Daily Trojan

The Trojans (11-2, 1-0 MPSF) started out with three quick goals to take an early 3-0 lead. Pepperdine then began scoring, and by the end of the first frame, the Waves cut the lead to 4-2. The Trojans turned on cruise control in the second quarter, extending their lead to 8-2 with four unanswered goals. The Waves and Trojans went back and forth scoring goals for the majority of the third frame, but the Trojans finished on a 3-0 run extending their lead to 13-4. USC continued to pile on the goals in the fourth, finishing on a 8-0 run.

USC threw the Waves off their game Saturday. Coming into the week, Pepperdine utility Luke Hewko might have been the second-leading scoring in the conference and Pepperdine’s top scorer, but he couldn’t manage a single goal against the Trojans. Pepperdine goalie Zack Rhodes averaged just over 10 goals-against per game, but the Trojans rocked the waves and Rhodes for 21 goals this weekend.

USC head coach Jovan Vavic said his team did not need a win against Pepperdine to gain confidence after two losses last Sunday to UCLA and California.

“I think we are a confident team regardless,” Vavic said. “I don’t think a loss is going to kill our confidence. We know that we are capable. This is an excellent team. It happens. Even the basketball champion Spurs have bad games … Against UCLA in the knockout tournament, we played pretty well. We didn’t win the game but played well in many areas.”

Nonetheless, Vavic did not undermine the importance of this win.

“We had a good week of training, and we played much better today … It is important to come here and play well,” he said.

Vavic’s faith in his team is understandable. In 2011, USC lost to Stanford and UCLA and finished fourth in the SoCal Tournament, but later went on to beat the Cardinal and Bruins and win a fourth straight national championship.

Ten Trojans scored against Pepperdine, and three Trojans reached significant milestones.   Freshman utility Bryce Hoerman led the Trojans in scoring with a career-high four goals. Furthermore, senior driver Kostas Genidounias’ two goals placed him in a tie for second place on the Trojans’ all-time scoring list. Lastly, freshman driver Lazar Pasuljevic tacked on the first goals of his career, scoring two in total.

Coach Vavic was glad to see his players get some rest after starting the season with three tournaments, each with four games in two days.

“They’re tired,” Vavic said. “We played four games in two days, and we’re traveling. By Sunday, we felt it. We were all a bit tired against Berkeley, but now it will be much, much easier to play just one game. We have the tournament coming up in two weeks with four games, but other than that most of the weekends are going to be one or two games.”

The Trojans look to bring their newfound momentum back home. They play their home opener on Saturday at 2 p.m. against No. 5 UC Santa Barbara. The USC Alumni game will follow at 3:15 p.m.