Women of Troy must turn it around

To call the women’s volleyball team’s match against Washington today a rivalry game is a bit of an understatement. Though UCLA certainly still occupies the spot of Public Enemy No. 1 for Trojan sports in general, this battle between the Huskies and the Women of Troy is sure to be a particularly emotional one considering the last time these two teams met.

USC was hosting Washington in the quarterfinals of the 2013 NCAA Division I national championship tournament. The No. 3 seed Huskies had just won the Pac-12 with an 18-2 record in conference play and had won both regular season matchups against the sixth-seeded Women of Troy, who finished 16-4 in the Pac-12. If the usual playoff atmosphere wasn’t enough, Washington was hosting the final weekend of the NCAA tournament in Seattle, meaning a third win against USC would earn the Huskies a chance to play for a national championship in their home gym.

With so much at stake, and the pressure clearly on Washington, the Women of Troy were obviously going to come out motivated. Sure enough, the match had the perfect conditions for an upset as the Women of Troy took the first two sets and needed just one more to steal a spot in the semifinals.

I vividly remember reading the updates from the official volleyball team Twitter account during the game. I put a lot of thought into making the short walk from my dorm room in Pardee Tower to the Galen Center to watch it, but the match was right in the middle of final exams, so I spent the night studying and tweet watching instead.

I’m not sure if my lack of loyalty had anything to do with it, but the Women of Troy couldn’t finish off the Huskies. Washington stormed back and took the next three sets to win the match, dramatically ending the Women of Troy’s national championship hopes.

I don’t think the timing of USC’s trip up to Seattle could have been better, because USC is in need of a big game. A team that was expected to look a lot like last year’s national quarterfinalist, if not better, has instead looked far from that. But there’s still plenty of time for the Women of Troy to get back on track, and a win in Washington would do just that.

The Women of Troy came in as the No. 5 team in the country according to the American Volleyball Coaches Association preseason poll, one spot behind Washington. Though the Huskies have hung tight at No. 4, USC has slipped all the way down to No. 19 according to the most recent poll, after losing five of six matches, including all four matches the team has played at home this year.

The rough patch began with a 3-2 loss to then-unranked Texas A&M, then a 3-0 loss to then-No. 10 Florida at home. After dropping a 3-1 match to then-No. 4 Wisconsin then beating an unranked Maryland team in straight sets on the road, the Women of Troy lost in three sets to No. 20 UCLA and in four sets to then-No. 19 Arizona State at home.

The sweeps to Florida and UCLA are not as bad as the set totals would indicate. Florida won 25-23, 25-23, 25-22 and UCLA won 25-23, 25-13, 27-25. So save for one set against the Bruins, the Women of Troy were right in those two deceptive losses. Though a little more back-and-forth with a 25-23, 15-25, 25-27, 25-13, 16-14 score, the Texas A&M match is another one that so easily could have been a victory.

The 21-25, 25-17, 25-17, 25-21 loss to Wisconsin was not as close as the other three, but the fact that USC can get a set off of last year’s national runner-up is a good sign. It’s harder to find a silver lining from the loss to the Sun Devils, so I’ll chalk that up to the frustration and disappointment from the other four losses snowballing into a fifth one.

There are some deeper problems as I look at the stat sheets from the five defeats, and stats can reveal if poor performance is linked to a high number of unlucky mistakes or to more endemic problems.

There are plenty of different things to look at, but I’ll focus on hitting percentage. It’s no surprise that USC has had a lower hitting percentage in all five losses, the closest being .318 to .273 against Arizona State  and the worst being .320 to .173 to Wisconsin. What’s surprising and somewhat discouraging is that there hasn’t been a huge disparity in attacking errors.

Besides against Texas A&M, when USC had 28 attacking errors to the Aggies’ 15, the difference in errors has been marginal, if not positive. The edge was 15 to 13 against Florida, 16 to 15 against Wisconsin and an even 17 to 17 against UCLA. USC actually had fewer errors than Arizona State, when the Women of Troy had 17 and the Sun Devils had 22.

Essentially, it doesn’t look like the team is making a bunch of mistakes early on that will balance out over the course of the season; it just seems like the team is getting outplayed on offense and defense.

Underperformance doesn’t necessarily mean this team is less talented than everyone thought. In fact, the Women of Troy are still ranked higher than two of the teams they lost to, so the AVCA voters must think the team potential but just hasn’t meshed yet.

It’s a very young team, with 11 underclassmen and five upperclassmen. The best of the bunch is yet to come as chemistry continues to grow, and the team just needs some energy to get over this rough patch.

That’s why this trip to Washington is so well-timed. It will be impossible for the Women of Troy to walk into the Huskies’ gym without being motivated to avenge last year’s heartbreak. Plus, unranked Washington State should not pose much of a problem on the second match of the trip and USC should come home on a winning streak even if the Huskies prove to be too strong.

But I’m feeling good about Washington. Call it blind faith, but faithful is one of the five traits of a Trojan, so what else would you expect from the student newspaper? I didn’t have faith last year and the team suffered a heartbreaking defeat, so here’s to some faith resulting a huge turnaround.

USC in five.

 

Luke Holthouse is a sophomore majoring in broadcast and digital journalism and policy, planning and development. His column, “Holthouse Party,” runs Wednesdays.