USC closes out regular season with win

USC’s seniors came up huge on Senior Day for No. 3 USC (21-4, 6-2) up against No. 5 Cal (20-6, 4-4). Trojan senior drivers Marc Vonderweidt and Kostas Genidounias scored all but one of USC’s goals as the Trojans got a big win at home 7-6.

Cal came out strong with the first goal by attacker Aleksa Saponjic. Cal’s goalie Jon Sibley was playing tough, but Vonderweidt eventually broke through with a goal with some great passing by the Trojans. Near the beginning of the second frame, the Trojans and Vonderweidt began to gain momentum with another goal as they took their first lead of the game at 2-1. Cal’s Conor Neumann would tie the game up, but Genidounias would regain the lead for USC at 3-2.

Nonetheless, Cal’s Farrel South would again tie it up with under a minute left in the half. Trojan freshman two-meter Lachlan Edwards had a fair chance to score after that, but the score would remain 3-3 going into halftime. The third frame began as a stalemate, but Genidounias would eventually break through off a fast-break to give the Trojans a 4-3 lead. The man of the day, Vonderweidt came through big again to give the Trojans their first two-score lead at 5-3. Near the beginning of the fourth frame, Genidounias again scored, giving the Trojans a three-score lead at 6-3. It seemed that the game was over, but the Bears would not go away that easily. Cal fired away two straight goals by Saponjic and attacker Colin Mulcahy in a span of less than 30 seconds to decrease the Trojan lead to one goal. Freshman utility man Mihajlo Milicevic gave the Trojans a significant goal with 5:12 left to put the score at 7-5. But with 4:33 left in the game, Cal’s Mulcahy would score to again put the Trojan lead back at one goal. USC’s freshman goalie McQuin Baron and the defense came up huge in the end, not allowing Cal to score again. Cal had a chance at the very end to score but the shot was wide.

Vonderweidt, who scored a hat trick in his final game at Uytengsu Aquatic Center, believed it was a huge win for the Trojans.

“You wanna win every game you can,” Vonderweidt said. “It’s important. They’re a good team. They can definitely beat anybody. I think it set us much better going into MPSF, so this win is really important. If we would have lost, there would have been a lot of other complications. It would have been a tougher road. So this win was a good win.”

This win was also significant as a confidence-booster for USC. The Trojans struggled against Stanford and UCLA in the fourth quarter, but on Saturday the Trojans won in the final period. Senior driver Rex Butler said the struggle to come through in the end was something mentioned in practice.

“It’s something that we definitely needed to work on,” Butler said. “To be a championship team, you gotta be able to come out with a W in those close games, so having practice like this and getting that win in a close game is definitely going to pay dividends in the end.”

This Trojan team has a tendency to let opponents back in the game, which Butler believes has to do with pace of play.

“We just need to stay focused on defense,” Butler said. “I don’t necessarily think we let our guard down but I think we get up and we think we should go for some opportunities like in the fast break, and we end up taking some quick shots and that allows us to get beat on the way back. So I think just settling down more when we do get those leads just to take control of the pace of the game.”

Saturday was the last home game for USC’s seniors, but it was not much different from any other game for Butler.

“It didn’t really make a huge difference to me,” Butler said. “I just wanted to come out and get a win with these guys, so it was really just another day.”

Vonderweidt, on the other hand, tried to soak up Senior Day as much as he could.

“It’s awesome,” Vonderweidt said. “It’s my last home game here. I’ll probably remember this game for a long time, my last game here, in a stadium like this. It makes you want to play a fifth year, but I don’t have that.”

As the regular season ends for the Trojans, they step into MPSF tournament play this week in Long Beach. Butler feels good about his team at this point in the season.

“We got a lot of confidence going into tournament play,” Butler said. “Historically, we do pretty well at the conference tournament and we are at a better spot now than we were last year, so we are feeling pretty good.”

Last year, USC lost two of their last three games of the regular season, whereas this year, USC has won all of its last three games headed into the MPSF tournament and is continuing to improve, according to Vonderweidt.

“I think we’re starting to come together,” Vonderweidt said. “We’re starting to fix our mistakes which were huge in those close games, getting that extra block, getting that extra rebound, those are huge. Those add up.”