Women of Troy look to continue undefeated streak


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With a perfect 6-0 record to start the season, the No. 3-ranked USC women’s water polo team looks to continue its hot start this weekend when it heads out to Riverside for the Lancer Invitational.

To kick off the tournament hosted by Cal Baptist University, USC will play against the host Lancers at 4 p.m. on Friday. The game against the Lancers (2-6) will be a rematch of their meeting at the UCLA Invite on Jan. 17, which USC won by a score of 24-3. The Women of Troy jumped out to a 20-1 lead in the third period and never looked back. Eleven different players scored, led by senior Monica Vavic’s six goals.

Immediately following their match against Cal Baptist, the Women of Troy will take on the University of Redlands at 5:15 p.m. The Bulldogs    (0-3) last played against USC in this same tournament last year. The Women of Troy were victorious with a 24-1 win against the Division III school. Seniors Eike Daube and Jennifer Stiefel both scored three goals to lead the Trojans to victory, while sophomores Ioanna Haralabidis and Stephania Haralabidis each scored twice.

On Saturday, Feb. 14, USC will play against Pomona-Pitzer (2-2) in an 11:30 a.m. match. The last time these two teams met was at Harvard University for the 2013 NCAA Championship quarterfinals, where USC thrashed Pomona-Pitzer by a score of 27-1. USC eventually went on to win the national championship that year in a thrilling sudden-death win over Stanford.

Finally, the Women of Troy will face Occidental College (0-2) at   2 p.m. to end the tournament. In what will be just their third match of the season, the Division III Tigers will look to put up a fight against USC, one of the nation’s best teams.

Though the competition may not be at the level USC will face in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, head coach Jovan Vavic and the Women of Troy will look to ride the momentum of last weekend’s successful showing at the Triton Invitational. In fact, two young Trojan players were rewarded for their contributions, with Stephania Haralabidis being named MPSF Player of the Week for the first time in her career, while freshman goalie Victória Chamorro racked up the first award in her young career as MPSF Newcomer of the Week. Stephania Haralabidis led the Women of Troy offensively in La Jolla last weekend, scoring 14 goals to lead USC to four big wins. Chamorro provided a steady force in the cage for USC at the Triton Invitational, racking up a career-high 15 saves in the championship game against No. 6-ranked UC Irvine. Overall, Chamorro finished with a total of 27 saves in just 13 periods of work, while allowing only 11 goals during the tournament.

After the first six games of 2015, USC leads the MPSF in offense and defense, as the Women of Troy are outscoring their opponents by a lofty 123-21 margin. Vavic is USC’s leading scorer with 28 goals this season, while Stephania Haralabidis is second on the team with 22 goals, followed by twin sister Ioanna Haralabidis with 15. Defensively, Chamorro averages 7.2 saves per game and just 3.4 goals-against per game.

Furthermore, it could be a big weekend for Vavic, who will look to climb the ladder in USC’s record books. After a big scoring output to start the season, Vavic leaped up to No. 3 all-time in career scoring at USC with 219 career goals. With only five goals needed to reach No. 2 all-time, Vavic will almost certainly pass former Olympian Sofia Konoukh (224 career goals) this weekend.