No. 2 USC set for battle with top 10 opponents

It will be another busy weekend for the No. 2-ranked men’s water polo team, as they take on two top 10 opponents, No. 9 Pepperdine and No. 6 UC Santa Barbara, in MPSF action.

USC will host the Waves on Saturday and travel to Santa Barbara on Sunday, with both games starting at noon.

The Trojans are coming off a second-place finish in the SoCal Tournament, where they lost to No. 1 UCLA in the championship game on a late goal by the Bruins. Grant Stein recorded a hat trick in the 10-9 defeat after a comeback attempt fell just short.

“We realized we need to start focusing more on the middle of game rather than just in the beginning and end,” Stein said of the loss.

Stein is the second leading goal scorer on the team with 27 goals, a ways behind sophomore transfer Blake Edwards, who leads the team with 47 tallies. Matteo Morelli and Lachlan Edwards each have 25 goals.

The Trojans have dominated on both ends this season, ranking first in the MPSF in offense and second in defense. They have outscored their opponents 295-96 and allowed just 5.65 goals per game with 13 shutout periods of regulation play thus far.

“On offense, we have a lot of finishers,” Stein said. “Everyone on our team can shoot, finish and drive. We have a great 5-on-6 defense. With McQuin [Baron] in the cage, it’s really hard for teams to score on him.”

But redshirt junior Luke Felton was not satisfied, wanting to be first in both categories.

“Ultimately we want to be first in offense and defense,” he said. “Scoring a lot of goals is not a problem for us, but if we key in on our defensive mistakes, we can clean up our mistakes and be the top team.”

Pepperdine finished ninth in the SoCal Tournament. The Waves, who co-hosted the tournament with LMU, lost to UC Irvine 13-12 in their first game but won their next three, beating Pomona, Santa Clara and Air Force by a combined score of 44-18.

But the Trojans are comfortable facing the team from Malibu.

“We’ve been playing Pepperdine all over summer, and we haven’t had too many problems with them,” Stein said. “We’re training this week for Santa Barbara more than Pepperdine.”

UC Santa Barbara is winless in two MPSF games thus far, placing sixth in the SoCal invitational, where it lost to USC 10-8 in group play. However, the result was closer than the Trojans would have liked.

“They gave us a tough time, especially in the second half,” Felton said. “We want to build upon what takeaways we got from that game. We want the score to be a little bit higher for us and lower for them.”

The Trojans should be familiar with the Gauchos, playing them in consecutive weeks.

“After playing Santa Barbara, we know what their tactics are, and we’re going to focus on that,” Stein said. “We know who their main players and shooters are. I think we’ll be ready.”

USC has won 15 straight games over Pepperdine and has a 61-19-2 all-time record against the Waves.

Against UC Santa Barbara, the Trojans have won 50 consecutive games and have a 67-12-2 record all-time.