The 2024 USC men’s water polo season has been defined by sustained growth and improvement throughout the year. After piecing together back-to-back wins against No. 7 UC Berkeley and No. 14 UC Santa Barbara, the No. 4 Trojans are looking to finish the regular season with a bang against crosstown rival No. 1 UCLA.

This past Sunday, USC (18-4, 2-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) took care of business against the Gauchos (15-11, 2-3 Big West), riding a solid performance to a 12-8 victory.

The Trojans started the game scorching hot, scoring seven goals within the first quarter. The Gauchos eventually cut into USC’s lead with a few 5-meter penalty shots, making the score 8-5 at halftime. Redshirt sophomore goalie Bernardo Herzer recorded a few crucial saves in the fourth quarter to secure a crucial win for the Trojans.

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Fifth-year 2-meter Max Miller continued his impressive season by scoring another goal against UCSB. Miller has now scored at least one goal in 20 out of 22 games this season for USC. Senior 2-meter Luka Brnetic also impressed in the game, recording his second hat trick of the season.

USC now prepares to make the trek to Westwood where they will face UCLA (20-1, 4-1 MPSF) — the number one ranked men’s water polo team in the nation. The Bruins are well-rested, coming off a bye week.

Having lost just once all season, UCLA is in good form — beating No. 2 Stanford (18-3, 3-2 ACC) 13-6 in its last game before the bye. The Bruins posted their best defensive performance of the season — in large part due to redshirt freshman goalie Nate Tauscher.

In his first collegiate start in net, Tauscher recorded 13 saves and only allowed one goal in the second half of the game.

“[The Bruins are] a good team, a well-balanced team, a very deep team, and their ranking is a testament to it,” said sixth-year Head Coach Marko Pintaric in an interview with the Daily Trojan.

USC has fallen short to its crosstown rivals twice this season. The Trojans lost by three goals in both games against UCLA, with both games proving to be hard-fought, defensive battles.

“It’s a different stage in the season, so I hope we are growing, and by watching those two games that we played against UCLA, [we] really improved in each game,” Pintaric said.

Although Herzer has racked up 151 saves this season, USC still needs to find a way to contain UCLA freshman attacker Ryder Dodd, who leads the Bruins in scoring with 77 goals — averaging 3.7 goals per game.

Pintaric also emphasized the importance of playing a complete four quarters of water polo without any mental lapses on defense against rival UCLA. In many of USC’s losses this season, the Trojans have collapsed on defense in the third or fourth quarter, getting outscored by their opponents at the crucial junctures of the game.

“We’re trying to work towards being more focused and being able to pull through a whole game together,” said senior driver Jake Carter. “We’re really trying to focus on that internally.”

The Trojans are looking forward to playing their crosstown rival in a highly anticipated game, and hopefully avenging their losses from earlier in the season. Ahead of the imminent postseason, a win over the top team in the nation would be a huge boost to the confidence of Pintaric’s squad.

“We always play to win and this is just like any other game, except there’s a little bit more rivalry to it,” Carter said. “We’re excited to hopefully win and bring some confidence going into MPSF and rolling through the postseason.”

USC will look to earn its first win against crosstown rival UCLA on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Spieker Aquatics Center in its final game of the regular season.