USC women’s lacrosse was red hot to start its season. The Trojans were on a roll with three straight wins, with one against then-No. 15 Army. Then they got halted in their tracks by No. 6 Michigan and now have a gauntlet of games coming up in a mere five days.

However, this team welcomes that sort of adversity.

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“We want to know what it’s like to play top-five, top-10 teams early on in the season because it just makes us more prepared,” said graduate midfielder Sloane Murphy. “It gives us tougher skin and as we go into later in the season when it’s closer to championships, we want to feel like we have good experience that we can rely on and lean back on to know that we’re prepared and ready for whatever teams we might face.”

USC (3-1) took a pounding last time out in its second home game of the year to the Wolverines (5-0). Michigan jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, and by the end of the second, its lead ballooned to five before coming out with the 9-3 win. Senior attacker Shelby Tilton was the only one to get on the scoresheet for USC, scoring all three of her goals unassisted.

It was a rough outing for the Trojans, who aim to replicate their success from last season, but they have ample opportunity to redeem themselves this weekend.

“The biggest thing is we want to focus on us and get better,” said Head Coach Lindsey Munday. “Michigan’s a great team, but it’s really early [in the] season. The goal right now is just to continue to grind, learn from the things we need to learn from, continue to improve and just continue to get better every single day.”

As the Trojans shift focus to this weekend, they’ll take on three opponents they’ve never faced before in their history: Towson University (1-2), Virginia Commonwealth University  (1-4) and Johns Hopkins University  (4-2). The weekend will begin with a trip to Maryland, where they’ll take on the Tigers. Their lone win came against winless Mount St. Mary’s (0-4).

Out of 120 teams, Towson ranks 88th in terms of goals allowed per game with 14.33, and USC’s last opponent of the trip, VCU, is tied for 63rd with 12.25. The Trojans’ potent scoring attack of Tilton and graduate attacker Ella Heaney will be poised for big games. 

Tilton and Heaney have accounted for over half of the Trojans’ total goals this season, with Tilton leading the way with 13. But USC’s patented defense will have to make the difference against the most formidable opponent of the weekend in the No. 15 Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays have scored the seventh-most goals of any team this season with 82. They’re a high-flying offense with nine players who have tallied 6 or more points, compared to only five players who have done that for USC.

“It’s less about who their players are and what their offense looks like and more about what can we do to be the best unit that we can be,” Murphy said. “Defensively, we have a really strong foundation, and that foundation is just trusting one another and [having] belief in our systems.”

USC’s defense is formidable in its own right. The Trojans boast a top-25 defense, allowing a shade under nine goals a game. They’ve allowed more than 10 goals once this season but will face a Blue Jays team that has scored 10 or more goals in every game.

The Trojans will have to foil Johns Hopkins’ high-scoring hopes to come out on the right side in this battle of top-ranked teams.

“Our defense is one of the best in the country, in my opinion, so I’ll take our defense,” Munday said. “If you go in focusing too much on another opponent, you lose that focus on yourself … [The Blue Jays] take so much pride in what they do, and I’m excited for the matchup.”

Before the Trojans can worry about the Blue Jays, they’ll kick their weekend off with Towson at Tiger Field on Friday at 3 p.m. 

Leila MacKenzie contributed to this report.