USC takes down another top opponent

After losing to California four-consecutive times, USC broke their losing streak against the Golden Bears on Saturday afternoon at Marks Stadium, eking out a 4-3 win.

The No. 7 Women of Troy’s victory over No. 5 Cal is their third victory against top-25 teams, as they swept UCSB on Thursday to go 2-0 for the weekend.

“In the past, we came in knowing we needed to win certain games and that really put a lot of pressure on us,” coach Richard Gallien said. “But, I had a really good feeling about today and we went out there and took care of business.”

USC, now 9-1, recorded another comeback victory on Saturday, falling down 1-0 after dropping the doubles’ point in a hotly contested opening round against the Golden Bears.

“The doubles matches took three years off of my life, but you gotta give it to the girls for their resiliency and their ability to comeback,” Gallien said.

Cal (6-3) was without their top player, No. 3 Jana Juricova, during their recent road trip — they faced UCLA on Friday — and they caught the injury bug again on Saturday after Taylor Davis retired before the second set of her match against junior Danielle Lao. With Lao having already posted a 6-0 win in the first set, Davis and her ankle from the day prior did not seem fit to continue the match.

Despite two out of their top three players suffering injuries, Cal fought hard against the Women of Troy before the depth of USC proved to be too much.

In describing the Golden Bears, Gallien said, “Cal’s a big, strong, athletic team and they can really get after you. We did a good job today fighting back and really going to get it.”

In the decisive match on court five, freshman Gabriella DeSimone took down Cecelia Estlander 7-5, 6-2.

“Gabriella really stepped up when the pressure was on and she really did a good job finishing out the match and pulling out a win for her team,” Gallien said.

On court three and four, freshman Sabrina Santamaria and sophomore Kaitlyn Christian each fell down early in their first sets, but the two members of USC’s top doubles team would lose only one game between them in their last two sets to each score a victory.

Christian had an especially difficult time early on against Annie Goransson, but a three-point swing — including a tiebreaker ace — evened up the match at 3-3 and from there, the scrappy sophomore didn’t look back.

Court one hosted the day’s most exciting match with No. 10 Zoë Scandalis facing off against Cal’s No. 23 Zsofi Susanyi, who replaced Juricova in first singles.

Inspired by her new No. 1 slot, Susanyi had a tight grip throughout the first set, before Scandalis roared back to even the match at 1-1 in the second. With the day already decided, the two played for pride as the final match of the afternoon was won by Susanyi, 6-2, 4-6, 1-0 (10-2).

For the Women of Troy, this win over Cal exorcised some demons that have been lingering these past few years, but more importantly they help put USC in the driver’s seat in the Pac-12.

“A win like this makes the rest of our schedule a bit easier and it really helps us going forward,” Gallien said.

With another matchup against Cal and games against Stanford and UCLA on the horizon, the Women of Troy certainly have their work cut out for them, but as they’ve proved throughout the year, they have a tendency to rise to the occasion.