After taking home wins against No. 7 Long Beach State University and No. 12 Pepperdine University over the weekend, No. 2 men’s water polo will head to No. 8 UC Irvine on Saturday for a powerhouse matchup between two undefeated teams.

USC (6-0) has yet to suffer a loss this season, with its closest game so far being a 10-7 win over No. 13 UC San Diego (5-3) on Aug. 29. After six games and nearly 200 minutes of play time, the team has trailed for a total of 93 seconds — all of which came in first quarters.

However, Irvine (6-0) is having an undefeated season of its own, including wins over No. 14 Loyola Marymount University (1-2) and No. 14 California Baptist University (5-3) at the UCI Invitational. The Anteaters are the toughest opponent remaining on the Trojans’ schedule before Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play begins in October.

Top Trojans look to continue hot starts

After leading USC in goals scored last season, junior driver Robert López Duart has taken his game to another level, becoming a monumental force to be reckoned with. 

Over six games, López Duart has accumulated nearly double the goals of any other player on the team with 19. In Sunday’s game against Pepperdine (3-2), his third of four goals marked the 100th of his career, making him just the 47th player in USC history to accomplish the feat. With three more goals, he will pass Head Coach Marko Pintaric on the all-time leaderboard.

López Duart is no stranger to the Anteaters, having played them four times in his career, including three times in his freshman season playing for Long Beach State. On Oct. 13, 2023, he erupted for a six-goal performance against Irvine, carrying The Beach to a 10-9 win.

Despite being a new addition to the roster, senior driver Mihailo Vukazic — who joins López Duart as the only other Trojan to score in every game this season — has plenty of experience facing Irvine from his time at the University of the Pacific. In four career games against the Anteaters, Vukazic has 14 goals and 10 assists, highlighted by a career-high seven goals on Sept. 21, 2024.

However, Irvine will be a new opponent for many of the other Trojan newcomers, including freshman 2-meter Strahinja Krstic. The Serbian native won MPSF Newcomer of the Week honors for the second week in a row Monday after notching back-to-back multi-goal games over the weekend; he has 11 goals on the season, trailing only López Duart among Trojan players.

On the goalkeeping end, redshirt junior Bernardo Herzer and redshirt sophomore Charles Mills have split time in front of the net fairly evenly, with each playing roughly half of the season’s minutes so far. Herzer has the slight edge in saves, with 35 to Mills’ 34, but has significantly fewer goals allowed at 22 compared to Mills’ 34.

While Pintaric has been willing to use either goalie against key opponents, Herzer’s experience may give him the nod over Mills, who has never played against Irvine. Herzer has faced the Anteaters twice, picking up 18 saves while allowing 21 goals in total.

Anteaters hope to change historical tide

Though Irvine boasts an identical record to USC, the team’s resume is far less impressive: The Anteaters’ two ranked wins were both by just a single goal, and their other four wins came against opponents with a combined record of 9-19.

Nevertheless, the roster has plenty of talent for the Trojans to be wary of. Sophomore attacker Cole Francisco leads the team with 12 goals and 7 assists and has recorded five points in three different games. Senior attacker Luka Krstic, who recorded a hat trick in last year’s matchup with USC, has had two such games this season to go along with 5 assists.

Unlike the Trojans, Irvine has had much more consistency in the goalkeeping department. Senior Zayd Mahmoud has started all but one game for the Anteaters, recording 34 saves but giving up 44 goals. Mahmoud has played USC once in his career, allowing eight goals in just over 17 minutes of a 16-10 loss.

The all-time series between the two teams has been dominated by the Trojans, who currently hold a mind-boggling 48-game winning streak over the Anteaters dating back to 1995. In the most recent matchup in 2024, USC brought home a 15-11 victory at Uytengsu Aquatics Center, led by a three-goal performance from fifth-year 2-meter Max Miller.

USC will travel to Irvine to face off against the Anteaters on Saturday at 1 p.m. Two undefeated teams will go in; only one will come out.