After falling to UCLA four separate times last year — including a heartbreaking defeat in the NCAA championship game — USC men’s water polo came into the 2025 season eager to get revenge on its crosstown rival and flip the narrative on its head.

Though it was no championship game, the No. 3 Trojans (15-2, 2-1 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) got their first taste of that revenge Saturday, taking down the No. 1 Bruins (18-1, 2-1 MPSF) in a nail-biting 13-12 upset in Westwood. The victory ended UCLA’s undefeated start to the season, as well as a 21-game winning streak dating back to 2024.

USC needed to pull out all the stops against a Bruin squad that typically dominates both sides of the ball, having beaten each of its opponents by an average of more than 10 goals prior to Saturday’s matchup. The Trojans’ 13 goals were the most given up by UCLA in a game this season, while the Bruins’ 12 goals were their second-fewest scored.

Vukazić leads USC in back-and-forth thriller

The stage was set early on for a dogfight down to the wire between the two rivals. UCLA sophomore attacker Ryder Dodd, who leads the MPSF with 64 goals and 87 total points, opened the game’s scoring with a desperate heave toward the net as the shot clock expired. He was quickly countered by senior driver Mihailo Vukazić, who fired a shot off the underside of the crossbar to knot the game at 1-1. 

The rest of the first quarter was just as close; a 3-1 run by the Bruins appeared to give them some momentum, but the Trojans scored twice in the final minute — including another goal from Vukazić with just three seconds left in the quarter — to tie the match back up. 

In the second quarter, UCLA once again got off to a two-goal lead, and USC once again battled back to even the score, this time on a goal from junior utility Luke Nelson. As the half drew to a close, Vukazić lobbed the ball over two Bruin defenders to secure the hat trick, putting the Trojans up 7-6 at the end — their first lead of the day.

Coming out of the break, both teams exploded on offense, combining for nine goals in the third quarter alone. UCLA redshirt senior attacker Chase Dodd picked up two game-tying goals on power plays, doing everything in his power to keep his team in the fight; however, the Trojans refused to let the Bruins take the lead, scoring the final two goals of the quarter to give USC a 12-10 lead.

Given the high-scoring nature of the third quarter, one might have expected the fourth to follow a similar pattern; instead, it was time for the defense to shine, particularly for UCLA. The Bruins held the Trojans scoreless for nearly a full eight minutes, allowing them to close the gap at 12-12 on Ryder Dodd’s fourth goal of the game — a scoring run that could have been far worse had USC’s defense not clamped down in its own right. 

With the clock winding down and overtime beginning to look like a real possibility, redshirt senior 2-meter Jack Martin fired a shot between two Bruin defenders to give the Trojans the lead with just 46 seconds remaining. UCLA’s final attempt from none other than Ryder Dodd bounced off the goalpost and into the hands of Vukazić, leaving the home crowd stunned and securing a massive win for USC.

Trojans thrive off balanced offense, clean defense

The Trojans came out on top thanks in large part to their balanced attack, which saw nine different players score throughout the game. Vukazić led the team with three goals for his seventh hat trick of the season and four in the last five games, while junior driver Robert López Duart and freshman driver Efe Naipoglu picked up two goals apiece. Senior 2-meter Connor Cohen notched his first goal of the season after playing in all 17 of USC’s games so far.

After struggling to stay out of the penalty area against No. 15 Princeton (16-8, 4-1 Northeast Water Polo Conference) earlier in the week, recording a season-high 19 exclusions, the Trojans played a much cleaner game against the Bruins with just nine exclusions, tied for their fewest in a game this season. Despite dialing back its aggressive play style, USC still managed to notch six steals and four field blocks on defense.

The Trojans’ two primary goalkeepers continued to split time in front of the net, with redshirt sophomore Charles Mills manning the first half and redshirt junior Bernardo Herzer coming in for the second. Both recorded identical stat lines of three saves and six goals allowed, with Mills picking up a save on a penalty shot in the first quarter to prevent the game from getting out of hand early.

Herzer and Mills, along with the rest of USC’s defense, had little answer for brothers Ryder and Chase Dodd, who combined to score six of the Bruins’ 12 goals on just 10 shots. Fortunately for the Trojans, the rest of UCLA’s lineup made just six of its 17 shot attempts, creating a path for USC to steal a win on the road and dramatically shift both teams’ momentum heading into the final stretch of the regular season.

The upset represents a major upheaval in the MPSF pecking order: The Bruins were previously the clear No. 1 team in the country, boasting two wins each over No. 2 UC Berkeley (12-3, 1-2) and No. 4 Stanford (10-4, 1-2). While the rankings are unlikely to change after Saturday — Cal would need to be placed either below a USC team it has beaten twice or above a UCLA team it has lost to twice — they are suddenly much less set in stone than they seemed just days ago.

With just over a month until the MPSF Tournament begins Nov. 21, the Trojans are set for a couple of weeks off before their next set of games. USC will host Cal on Nov. 1 and Stanford on Nov. 2, both at Uytengsu Aquatics Center at 1 p.m.