No. 15 USC wrapped up its inaugural homestand at Rawlinson Stadium on Thursday with a 1-0 loss to the unranked Washington Huskies, its second straight loss after falling 5-1 to No. 1 Stanford last week. It was the Trojans’ first conference matchup of the season and their first loss since 2018 to Washington, who didn’t earn a single vote in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25 poll.

Sophomore forward Alex Buck provided Washington’s lone goal in the 29th minute after slipping past graduate goalkeeper Bella Grust, who had charged off her line toward Buck to stop her run. USC (3-2-1) had nine corner kicks, but couldn’t capitalize on any of those set pieces. Its best chance came in the 13th minute, when a corner dropped in front of the goal before Washington (4-1-3) cleared it. The rest of the Trojan corners were off target.

“We were hitting way too long,” Head Coach Jane Alukonis said of the team’s corner tries. “We know our field is narrow and we need to be able to play it into more advantageous spaces.”

The Trojans struggled to find rhythm in their possession. They would create pressure on Washington’s defense, but also spend long stretches of the match struggling to move the ball past midfield. One of their best opportunities came in the 28th minute when sophomore forward Faith George nearly set up sophomore forward Jaiden Anderson inside the box, but Washington’s back line managed to clear it again. 

To make matters worse for USC, graduate midfielder Sophia Cavaliere, a Columbia graduate student transfer from this offseason, went down with a knee injury and was carried off the field. When asked after the match, Alukonis said she didn’t have an update on Cavaliere’s injury and was unsure what the timetable for her return would be. 

Freshman midfielder Alexandra Larsson impressed in her time on the field with her defensive awareness and the clashes she won in the middle of the park. In the 65th minute, Larsson knocked sole goalscorer Buck to the turf, winning a free kick afterwards. Then, in the 76th minute, she stopped a dangerous Washington attack at the last second with a well-timed toe poke. 

“Alex had a great game,” Alukonis said. “She really put herself out there, so I think she has a really bright future with us. Happy to have her, and she made a really big impact.”

USC brought extra players into attack to try to tie the game late on. The numbers led to chances, but they still couldn’t find the net. Anderson fired wide in the 78th minute after freshman midfielder Jaiden Rodriguez squeezed the ball through a gap between two defenders. Minutes later, junior forward Maribel Flores shot from distance, but her attempt went just over the crossbar.

“Offensively at that point, you’re just sending numbers up and trying to score because there’s not a big difference in losing 1-0 versus 2-0,” Alukonis said. “So you’ve got to take a risk and go for it, but [we] still struggled to produce.”

After finishing its six-game homestand on a whimper, USC will head on its first Big Ten road trip of the season to Michigan (3-4-1) on Thursday and Michigan State (3-2-3) on Sunday.