Women of Troy gearing up for title run

USC women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin makes the team’s goal very clear at the beginning of the season.

“At USC, the goal is to win a national championship,” Khosroshahin said. “Whenever I see [Athletic Director] Pat Haden he says to me ‘What are you doing today to help us win the national championship?’”

The Women of Troy won the national championship in 2007, Khosroshahin’s first year with the program. Only fifth-year senior midfielder Ashli Sandoval remains from that squad, and the rest of the current team is eager to share in the excitement.

“We want to win a national championship, but in order to get there, we need to come together as a team,” Sandoval said.

Standing between USC and its goal is one of the nation’s most difficult nonconference schedules, which includes a game against every team in the grueling new Pac-12 and, of course, a 64-team, single-elimination tournament that will crown the NCAA champion.

The Women of Troy bowed out of the tournament in the second round last year, taking a 4-0 loss to eventual champion Notre Dame on a frigid afternoon in South Bend, Ind. It was USC’s second consecutive year failing to make it out of the opening weekend, after losing to Oklahoma State on penalty kicks in the opening round in 2009.

USC will get a chance for revenge against Oklahoma State this year when it hosts the Cowgirls and the Texas Longhorns in the Trojan Invitational on Sept. 9 and 11 at McAlister Field. The tournament is the centerpiece of a nonconference schedule that includes the likes of San Diego, Illinois and Portland. Oklahoma State finished last season ranked No. 5 in the nation, and Portland finished at No. 8 after spending most of the season ranked No. 2.

Illinois and San Diego finished just outside the top-25, but the Women of Troy still have those games circled. The Torero’s swept a home-and-home series from USC last year, leaving a very bitter taste.

It’s the Fighting Illini who will be looking for revenge when the Women of Troy visit Champaign, Ill., on Nov. 2. USC bested Illinois 3-1 in last year’s opening round of the NCAA tournament.

It gets no easier for the Women of Troy as they enter the Pac-12 conference. Last season as the Pac-10, the conference garnered  seven NCAA tournament berths and finished with four ranked teams. Although every team in the conference plays each other once, almost all of USC’s marquee games come on the road. The team will play at perennial powerhouses Stanford and California and will travel to Seattle for the Women of Troy’s matchup with Washington, which finished last season ranked No. 15. Finally, the team will end its season against UCLA in Westwood.

“I haven’t really taken notice of the other teams joining the Pac-12,” Sandoval said. “But I think our team is a lot better than last year, so I think we have a really good shot at taking conference.”

The Women of Troy figure to be a more experienced team in general this year. They lost three starters, but the team features an incoming freshman class that could make an immediate impact.

Of his incoming class, Khosroshahin and many others mentioned forward Jessica Musmanno out of New Jersey as a player he thinks could contribute from day one.

“The freshmen are catching up really fast,” Sandoval said. “But the older players are doing a really good job of relating our experience to them.”

The Women of Troy had a standout freshman forward last year, too.  Sophomore Autumn Altamirano finished second on the team in goals and scored the most dramatic goal of the season in the 86th minute to give USC a 1-0 win over UCLA at the Coliseum.

Altamirano is just one of a very deep sophomore class that also includes forward Elizabeth Eddy (five goals last season) and goalkeeper Shelby Church (played every minute in goal last season), among others.

Still, Khosroshahin does expect to see some improvement from what was already a very solid class.

“There was a lot of inconsistency last year in terms of understanding the game plan,” Khosroshahin said. “Our game plan is hard to understand at first, but we do expect more consistency in general this year.”

And the Women of Troy will need consistency from the whole team — not just their sophomore class — if they want to make a deep tournament run and reach their ultimate goal of a national championship.