USC women’s volleyball walked into its Thursday night match against Northwestern and left wearing a fur coat after taking down the Wildcats 3-1. The Trojans have won seven straight games, dating back to their Oct. 17 win against Iowa.

The Trojans (19-5, 10-4 Big Ten) were led by the tandem of freshman setter Reese Messer and redshirt sophomore outside hitter London Wijay. Wijay has been on a tear as of late, as this game marked her third performance with 20 or more kills in her last six games.

Messer’s 49 assists against the Wildcats (15-11, 5-9 Big Ten) were her second most this season. Messer is currently second in the Big Ten in total assists and assists per set, while also being one of only three freshmen in the entire country with at least 900 assists.

Trojans run wild against ‘Cats

USC opened the match with a kill from redshirt sophomore middle blocker Leah Ford, assisted by Messer, and kept up the hot streak, jutting out to a 9-5 lead that was stamped by 4 points from Wijay, 2 of them being service aces and providing the groundwork for her 22-kill performance.

Wijay’s having three 20-kill performances in six games was last done by a Trojan on the women’s side when then-senior outside hitter Skylar Fields finished her final season in the cardinal and gold with the third-highest single-season kill mark in program history in 2023.

The biggest moment of the first set was when, at 13-13, Northwestern’s redshirt junior setter Sienna Noordermeer, a Los Angeles native, got hit in the face with a fast-traveling volleyball and had to lie on the hardwood for a minute.

As if the Wildcats focused their energy and strength on Noordermeer’s removal, they quickly took a 2-point lead late and held on to take set one, hitting excellently as a team at a 0.382 hitting percentage. In contrast, USC hit at just a 0.205 clip.

“There’s a lot of ugly volleyball. That’s the bang bang, a backflip, chicken wing, snap the ball over the net. Something crazy,” Head Coach Brad Keller said. “But we’re winning a lot of those plays. And it matters. This is a two-point conference. Can’t mess up more than twice.”

The second set began and continued as the opposite of its predecessor, with both teams initially trading points, and once the Trojans crossed over into double digits, they began extending their lead, eventually to a 7-point difference at 21-13, thanks to a kill from redshirt junior outside hitter Adonia Faumuina.

The Wildcats then scored 4 straight points, 2 of them coming from USC attack errors, bringing the deficit within two. However, two kills from senior middle blocker Rylie McGinest put the game away and tied the match at 1-1.

McGinest was one of five Trojans to have at least seven kills against the Wildcats, which helped lead to a total count of 65 kills for the Trojans, the 3rd most in a match all season.

The back-and-forth nature of the second set carried into the third — it took until halfway in the set for a lead greater than 3 points to be established. But once it was, the Trojans didn’t look back, rolling to a 25-16 win that included the largest lead of any set during the match at 9 points, thanks to a kill from Faumuina.

Their hitting percentage also shot up by over 0.200 points to a blistering 0.421 clip, thanks to an outpour of 19 kills and only three attack errors, both set bests during the match.

The final set was nerve-racking, with eight different tie scores, the most out of any set during the match. The night ended on a kill from freshman outside hitter Abigail Mullen, who had nine kills on the night, five of those coming in the final set.

“We all really connect with each other and are comfortable to be ourselves, and I think that’s really important to have good relationships, because it carries on to how we play,” Wijay said in a postgame news conference.

A ‘complete’ volleyball performance

The win marked two special tallies for the Trojans. The last time they won seven straight games was 2023, while the last time they won seven straight conference games was the year before. The win came off the heels of their thriller against Minnesota, where Wijay dropped her career high in kills with 25. Her 53 attack attempts against Northwestern are tied for the second most in her career, matched with her tally in USC’s win against Washington two weeks ago.

“She brings a lot of fire and fun to the court, and so that’s always fun to play next to. And she’s just an incredible volleyball player, not just with hitting, but digging, passing, all the stuff,” Mullen said in a postgame news conference. “We’re just really lucky to have her.”

Wijay also stood out in the errors department. The team had 20 attack errors across the game, and they lead the Big Ten in service errors — part of the team’s aggressive philosophy — of which they had 14 against Northwestern. Across Wijay’s 53 attempts, she only had five total between the two categories, something Keller praised her for.

“She’s completely under control as she’s swinging and making the team play, and she’s not getting super frustrated when it’s not a kill. She’s understanding that there’s another part of the game,” Keller said. “[She’s a] complete volleyball player.

That praise, like the USC offense, got spread around, including to freshman libero Taylor Deckert, who collected 23 digs, the third-most of her burgeoning career, and to Mullen, who backed up Wijay with 14 kills.

The engine behind that offensive vehicle, though, was Messer, who helps a team with multiple powerful arms look like an offensive juggernaut at its best.

“She can run things down, and she gets her hands on a lot of levels that most setters don’t get their hands on across the country,” Keller said. “She makes an average pass look like it’s in system. When you have those combinations, it’s more opportunities for everybody to get more quality swings than we’ve had in the past.”

The Trojans will play Rutgers at Galen Center on Friday at 7 p.m.