After a few rainy weeks, the highly sought-after sunny Southern California weather was back for the Trojans’ dual match against UC Berkeley. With a streak of home matches and high team morale coming off a 7-0 win against the University of San Diego and a 4-1 start to the spring season, No. 18 USC barely beat the Golden Bears 4-3, narrowly avoiding just its second loss of the season so far.

“It’s been nice to have this long stretch at home, so we [can] just focus on making our atmosphere and making our opponents hate playing on our turf,” said junior Emma Charney in an interview with the Daily Trojan after the match.

As the doubles players took the court and began playing, Marks Stadium was filled with loud cheers and chants of “USC” by fans and players. The Trojans’ (5-1) star doubles team sophomore Lily Fairclough and senior Grace Piper, ranked No. 9 in the nation, took center court against Berkeley’s (1-4) pairing of sophomore Mao Mushika and junior Berta Passola Folch.

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Fairclough and Piper started the match off well though it ultimately was abandoned with USC trailing 4-5, as the Trojans’ two other doubles teams of senior Sloane Morra and freshman Jana Hossam as well as Charney and senior Parker Fry had already clinched the doubles point with their 6-3 and 6-0 wins, respectively.

While it is impossible to know if they would have closed out the match, it was an impressive display from Mushika and Passola Folch against one of the top doubles teams in the nation.

Morra and Hossam faced off against senior Jessica Alsola and freshman Naomi Xu while Charney and Fry defeated sophomore Tiziana-Marie Schomburg and freshman Greta Greco Lucchina.

“Doubles has been a strength for us. We have a lot of confidence in how we play our doubles,” said Head Coach Alison Swain in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “I’m really happy to see our number three team win so many deuce points today, and our two team come through to get the clinch and our ones to keep pushing back when they were a little behind early in the set. That’s what a team effort is.”

After USC earned the doubles point and the club tennis team was recognized for a November fall invitational win in Austin, Texas, the singles players began play on all six courts.

No. 53 Charney was first to finish with a quick 6-3, 6-1 win against Alsola. Charney trailed 3-0 in the first set before storming back — winning 12 of the last 13 games of the match.

Fairclough and sophomore Immi Haddad were next to finish but were unable to overcome their opponents. Fairclough lost a few key deuce points in a back-and-forth 6-4, 6-2 loss to No. 70 senior Lan Mi, and Haddad lacked consistency in her 6-2, 6-2 loss to Lucchina.

Graduate student Maia Sung finished shortly after Haddad, defeating Schomburg with a definitive first set and narrow second set win for an overall match score of 6-1, 6-4. Sung’s victory was crucial after the back-to-back losses and placed the Trojans back in front of the Bears.

“I was very content with the way that I played. A lot of the things that we’ve been practicing showed in matches for everyone,” Sung said. “Hopefully, next time there [are] certain things that could just be a little bit tighter, but overall, I thought it was a really good day and good attitude.”

With the match score being 3-2, one more win was needed for the Trojans to beat the Bears. Both No. 43 Piper and No. 71 Hossam entered a third set, with Piper quickly winning the first set but narrowly losing the second to No. 65 Mushika and Hossam losing the first set 7-5 and winning the second 7-6 (1).

“That helped both Grace and Jana a lot to be out there together,” Swain said. “It’s little things like that that help us compete as a team and can give us a little momentum and a little advantage.”

Piper broke late in the third set to clinch the win for USC with a final match score of 6-1, 4-6, 6-3. Piper’s victory proved crucial, as Hossam was defeated 7-5, 6 (1)-7, 6-4 after a long third set — the culmination of a brutal day of battle between the Californian teams.

“I absolutely love this team. This is a group of players that loves playing college tennis together, loves each other and really loves the work,” Swain said. “They all want to be the best tennis players they can be, so it’s fun coming to practice every day. These girls are motivated and driven and focused. Team morale is great, and we’re really excited to get to play at home again next week.”

USC is next set to play the No. 25 Pepperdine Waves on Saturday, March 1 at 1 p.m. at David X. Marks Tennis Stadium.

Sloane Morra is a sports columnist for the Daily Trojan and is not involved in the publication of any tennis coverage.