USC knocks off Whittier in NCAA play-in
In the words of head coach Jovan Vavic, “It’s a new season,” for the USC men’s water polo team.
The No. 3 Trojans’ (23-6) rollercoaster of a regular season is over, and their NCAA Tournament run got underway with a dominant 19-4 win over No. 6 Whittier in a play-in game last Saturday.
Geni from the pool · Senior driver Kostas Genidounias opened the scoring on Saturday, in the process becoming USC’s career leader in goals. – Mariya Dondonyan | Daily Trojan
USC senior driver Kostas Genidounias opened the scoring, becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer with 255 goals. Vavic felt it was fitting that Genidounias reached the mark in his final home game at Uytengsu Aquatics Center.
“That’s a very special moment,” Vavic said. “His mom and dad and sister were there. Kostas is such an unselfish player. The fact that he became the leading scorer and is still unselfish … I mean, he could have scored another 70 goals on top of what he scored in those four years if he was a selfish player.”
The Poets (23-13) evened the match at one before the Trojans went on a five-goal surge, including two consecutive strikes from senior driver Rex Butler and another two in a row from freshman utility James Walters. Whittier again cut the lead with a goal of their own, but USC scores from senior driver Marc Vonderweidt, redshirt sophomore driver Luke Felton and senior two-meter Max Hurst-Mendoza extended the Trojans’ lead to 9-2 by halftime.
Four USC players scored in the third quarter to increase the lead to 15-5 entering the final frame. But the Trojans were not finished just yet. In the fourth quarter, Vonderweidt and Walters earned hat tricks, while freshman driver Lazar Pasuljevic became the 12th USC player to score.
In addition to Genidounias, two other Trojans moved up in the record books on Saturday. Butler’s two goals placed him at No. 25 on USC’s all-time career scoring list with 114. With five saves against the Poets, freshman goalie McQuin Baron advanced to second place on USC’s single-season save list with 264. Baron is now five saves away from passing Andrew Tinseth’s 1993 record.
Vavic knows this win was significant for the Trojans, not just to stay alive in the NCAA Tournament, but also to build confidence after placing in fourth at the MPSF Tournament.
“We definitely feel better about ourselves now,” Vavic said. “It’s a new season. We have two games left, and we are still alive. Our goal back in September was to make it to the NCAA, and we did it. We’re focused on getting the job done in San Diego.”
Over the course of the season it seemed that USC played well when it needed to, but often struggled in other situations. The team proved itself as a contender for its seventh straight national title by winning the SoCal Tournament, but lost crucial regular season matches to UCLA and Stanford. Now that every game is win or go home, Vavic believes the Trojans are in prime position for success.
“I definitely mentioned that [to the team] about the season,” Vavic said. “We lost in the semifinals of the MPSF Tournament which was not a must-win for us. The game that was a must-win was [UC] Irvine and that was the game we prepared. So that’s a good sign, a very good sign.”
With this victory, the Trojans are off to La Jolla, California, where UC San Diego will host the NCAA Tournament semifinals and finals. The Trojans are set to play No. 2 Stanford (25-3) Saturday at 3:10 p.m. USC played the Cardinal twice this season, with the first meeting resulting in a last-second road loss. The two teams met again in the conference tournament in a defensive battle; that game also went to the Cardinal, 7-4. Nonetheless, Vavic believes that this history does not play any role in this game.
“In 2012 our [women’s] team went to the NCAA and we were ranked No. 6 and played Stanford and UCLA,” Vavic said. “We hadn’t beaten them once. In the semifinals of that tournament, we crushed UCLA. It was not even close. It’s a new season. The playoffs are a new opportunity. We have two weeks to prepare. What really happened in those last two games doesn’t matter.”
If the Trojans are victorious, they will play in their 10th straight national championship game and get a shot at their seventh straight title on Sunday at 3:10 p.m.