USC notches two key victories over break

While most of the USC student population was on spring break, the USC women’s water polo team was hard at work rebounding from a tough finish to the Barbara Kalbus Invitational in which they fell to No. 1 Stanford 9-3 in the championship match.

Staring down three top 10 matches over 10 days, the Trojans had a rather daunting task ahead of them with back-to-back home matches against No. 7 UC Irvine and No. 5 Hawai’i before traveling once again to take on Hawai’i in Honolulu.

In their home opener at Uytengsu Aquatics Center, the Trojans proved dominant against the Anteaters by a 13-7 margin and later defeated the Rainbow Wahine 12-7. Thanks to 6 total goals over the course of the home stand from superstar freshman Paige Hauschild, a strong combined effort from keepers junior Amanda Longan and senior Victória Chamorro and an incredible 4-goal first half performance from sophomore utility Maud Megens, the third-ranked Trojans headed into spring break looking like an incredibly formidable squad from top to bottom.

In Honolulu, USC managed to dominate play against the nation’s fifth-ranked squad. The spring break destination provided no break for the Trojans as they went to work defeating Hawai’i 9-5. Hauschild, again, put up a hat trick for the Women of Troy while senior captain Brianna Daboub notched 2 goals of her own.

Now, the Trojans prepare to face off against No. 17 Princeton as the two squads will hop in the Uytengsu pool on Thursday night. At this point, USC has more than recovered from its late February loss to the Cardinal and have begun to string together an impressive streak of wins. Using this momentum, the Women of Troy will prepare to take on a team that they dominated a year ago under similar conditions.

Playing in Los Angeles, the top-ranked USC ladies dominated Princeton, leading by as many as 8 goals in the second period en route to a 12-3 final score. Megens, the star of the UC Irvine game, was on top of her game in last year’s matchup as she netted 5 goals on the day, including 3 in the first period alone.

While the past year has brought plenty of change to both programs, many of the faces remain the same on both sides. Megens, Daboub, Longan and Chamorro all provided valuable performances in taking down the Tigers. On the other side, Princeton’s Haley Wan, who alone scored all 3 of the Tiger goals against USC in 2017, will be coming back to face the Trojans as a senior with 37 goals under her belt in 2018.

As is the case with most games, USC will look to play its offense through Hauschild. Coming off her fourth MPSF Newcomer of the Week award Hauschild is on as hot a streak as any player in the nation. Averaging 2.57 goals per game, Hauschild leads the MPSF in that metric and has notched multi-goal games in 11 of 14 games this year.

“For Paige, the sky is the limit,” USC head coach Jovan Vavic said of Hauschild earlier in the season. “I’m just excited to see how high she can go.”

Thursday’s Princeton game will be the team’s first televised match of the season. Kicking off at 5 p.m., the game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Network.