The No. 3 USC Trojans jumped out early and never looked back in their 16-6 victory over No. 10 Pacific at Uytengsu Aquatics Center Sunday afternoon. The win marked the Trojan’s 10th of the season.

Coming off a strong tournament performance last week — finishing third at the Mountain Pacific Sports Invitational, capped off by an overtime thriller over Stanford — USC looked to carry its momentum into its matchup with Pacific.

The Trojans got out to an 8-3 lead in the first quarter, led by senior center Max Miller’s hat trick in the game’s opening minutes and redshirt junior utility Joshua Waldoch’s trifecta: goal, steal and assist.

“We moved the ball really [solid], and we [looked] for good setups,” Waldoch said. “Maybe a little too much; we passed up on some open opportunities, but this was working for each other and opening up the cage a lot more.”

Waldoch’s impact would be felt on both ends of the pool as the junior would finish the game with three goals, three steals and an assist.

USC’s offense slowed down in the second quarter, unable to score a goal; however, its defense carried over from the first, giving up only one goal to the Tigers. The Trojans’ stifling of Pacific was made possible through their matchup against the Tiger’s 6v5 offense, holding them to shooting a mere 25% on man-up opportunities.

“We focused on our 5v6 defense a lot this week,” said redshirt freshman goalie Bernardo Herzer. “Working together more as a team and communicating. I think that showed in our game.”

Between Herzer and redshirt sophomore goalie Eric Hubner’s combined 13 blocks and the plethora of steals from multiple Trojans, USCs’ defensive shutdown over Pacific reflected Head Coach Marko Pintaric’s focus for the week leading up to the match.

USC rejuvenated its offense in the second half, when the team tacked on five more goals and held Pacific scoreless in the third quarter. From the fourth quarter forward it was smooth sailing for USC, as the Trojans closed out the visiting Tigers in their final home game untill November.

“We really focused on the offense they would run, especially on a man-up situation,” Waldoch said. “We’d focus on how to block or how to move, how to guard your area in a specific situation. We really focused down on that, and it really showed this game.”

With the victory concluding almost a month of home match-ups, USC will set its sights on its trip north, where the Trojans will face two top-four teams in No. 2 Cal and No. 4 Stanford. Having already met both teams, USC will take lessons from its first matchups to next weekend’s rematches.

“Composure and mental strength [are] the two biggest things,” Waldoch said. “We could definitely play with anyone. We’re going to need to have a lot more composure if we want to beat the big teams like Cal and Stanford.”

For its second meeting, USC will take what worked and make the necessary changes to lift the team over the Golden Bears and Cardinals next weekend.

“Cal and Stanford are two different teams. They play two different games, two different rosters, so we’ll try and adjust for both,” Pintaric said.

USC will face Stanford Saturday at 12:00 p.m. at Avery Aquatic Center, then Cal Sunday at 1:00 p.m. at Spieker Aquatics Complex.