Water polo finishes second in San Diego

The men’s water polo team took second place at the Triton Invitational in La Jolla this past weekend, securing wins over Concordia University Irvine, UC Irvine and Pepperdine University, but losing the title match to UCLA. After this first tournament of the season, No. 2 USC holds a 3-1 record overall. 

An initial shutout win over Concordia, 24-0, and a second win over No. 12 UC Irvine, 10-4, pushed the Trojans into a semifinal round against No. 10 Pepperdine. 

In their first matchup of day two against Pepperdine, Massimo Di Martire, USC’s newest graduate student recruit from Italy, scored a quick goal in the first quarter. The Waves tied up the score in a couple of minutes, but the Trojans followed that goal with four more in a row throughout the first and second periods. By halftime, USC held a four-goal lead on Pepperdine, only to dominate in the third quarter, scoring five more goals to Pepperdine’s two. The Trojans scored for the last time at the beginning of the fourth period, and while the Waves came out strong for a four-goal comeback, it wasn’t enough to take the win. With strong defense and a 13-save performance from goalie Kyle McKenney, USC beat Pepperdine 12-8 in the semifinal round, propelling them to the title game against No. 3 UCLA later that day. 

In their second game of the day, the Trojans deployed their defense against the Bruins. Redshirt sophomore goalie Blake Jackson came out strong, making 11 total saves and holding the Bruins at only one goal in the first and second quarters. UCLA led throughout the first half, but the Trojans tied up the score at the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third quarter with goals from Di Martire and redshirt senior driver Ashworth Molthen. Both teams converted a few more goals through tight defense, and by the end of the third quarter, the Trojans were only down by two points. The crosstown rivals matched each other goal for goal in the fourth quarter, with junior driver Carson Kranz and redshirt senior Jake Ehrhardt of the Trojans knocking in one goal each. However, it wasn’t enough to overtake the Bruins, and USC lost 6-8. 

“We usually aren’t playing teams like UCLA, or one of the more top four teams, this early in the season, and we lost this time. But I think it’s good that we saw this early in the season and we can come back and learn from that and beat them next time,” said junior 2-meter Max Miller. 

Miller enters his third season of USC water polo with solid collegiate water polo experience, scoring seven goals in a shortened season as a true freshman and 12 goals as a sophomore. Team chemistry is a huge aspect of the game, and Miller believes USC has that piece of the puzzle figured out.

“We’ve become a pretty close team, especially over our Europe trip over the summer, and we’ve really just been playing well together. I think we played better than I anticipated we would for our first tournament of the season,” Miller said. 

Miller’s positive outlook on the final game of the tournament is also shared by Jackson. 

“I felt solid, I thought I played pretty well. It was kind of my first time ever starting in a big game against UCLA. We lost that, which was a bummer, obviously, definitely a lot of room to improve there, but it was a really cool experience. Happy to get my first big start,” Jackson said. 

Last season, Jackson made his career debut against University of La Verne, making three saves in the second half. Before this weekend’s matchups, Jackson has appeared in four games, setting a previous career high of 10 saves against Santa Clara University. 

The rest of the season will present more challenges, but the Trojans are ready to face them head-on. Jackson feels “very confident” going into this season.

“It’s obviously still early in the season, but now we know what we need to work on,” Jackson said. “And all the core elements of a successful team we have; we have good chemistry, good communication, and our defense is looking really good, so it’s looking to be a good season.” 

The Trojans open at home on Thursday with back-to-back games against California State University, Long Beach and Golden West College. On Saturday, USC will head to Claremont for another double header and face Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer.