No. 3 women’s water polo comes back to defeat Cal on the road


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The Women of Troy trailed the Golden Bears early, but thanks to another remarkable performance by senior Monica Vavic, USC was able to rally and pick up their 20th victory of the season.

Cal dominated the first half of the game and would score two straight before freshman driver Brianna Daboub answered with a strike to make it 3-4 in the third.

Then in the fourth, Vavic took control with three huge goals, one of which was a penalty shot to put the Women of Troy up 6-4 with a minute left.

Vavic had a total of four goals Saturday, putting her at 273 for her career and  No. 3 in the MPSF history books, as well as 82 for the season, which currently sits at second in USC single-season history.

Vavic was not the only Woman of Troy member who played well. Victória Chamorro came up huge with some nice deflections during the game.

She received the MPSF Newcomer of the Week award with her performance against LMU, in which she held them scoreless for nearly three quarters and then the next day with five saves against CSUB.

“I would say in comparison to Flor, she is actually further ahead in her freshman year,” head coach Jovan Vavic said.

Going into this weekend, she had 6.6 saves per game and 4.2 goals against per game.

For the most part this season, when the Women of Troy have held deficits into the second half of games, they have lost.

Their two closest games were loses in a defensive battle to UCLA and to Stanford in overtime. Before this weekend, their closest win was 11-7 at UC Irvine, a game that USC controlled the whole way through.

By not only finishing out a close game, but also capping off a comeback with a win,  the team is able to obtain some extra confidence and momentum moving forward.

“Against Stanford we were down by two goals and we came back to tie the game and force overtime,” Vavic said. “Then against Cal, we won the game. Last year, we were not really able to do that, and this year it is a great sign.”

It seems that this year’s team is on the upswing.

Around this time last year, USC was plagued by injuries and lack of motivation. This year’s team is on a six-game win streak, whereas last year’s team lost their last four out of 10 games.

Next on the schedule for USC is San Jose State in their second- to-last game of the regular season on April 11, Senior Day, at 4 p.m.