Last weekend, No. 17 women’s volleyball played its first stretch of Big Ten matches at home, and for the first time this season, the Trojans looked fallible at Galen Center. They fell in a four-set match to unranked Indiana and got swept by No. 13 Purdue — the first time they’ve lost two consecutive games all season.

USC (10-4, 1-3 Big Ten) is still a fresh face in the Big Ten conference, which Head Coach Brad Keller called a “juggernaut.” That inexperience showed in their performance. Unable to handle Indiana’s (13-1, 4-0 Big Ten) blazing offense and Purdue’s (12-2, 3-1 Big Ten) stalwart defense, the Trojans are currently tied for 12th in the Big Ten, with only unranked Maryland (7-6, 0-3 Big Ten) and Ohio State (3-9, 0-4 Big Ten) below them.

“I thought we looked tired and lethargic this whole weekend. I thought we were just one step behind the whole weekend,” Keller said in a postgame news conference on Friday.

USC loses opening spark

The Trojans came into Friday’s match against Indiana, which sits just outside the top 25-ranked teams, with momentum following a win over Ohio State, and that momentum initially appeared to carry over. They won the opening set 25-15, primarily backed by a Reese Messer-Mia Tvrdy connection: Messer, a freshman setter, ended the first set with 14 assists, and Tvrdy, a sophomore middle blocker, led all hitters with 7 kills.

The Hoosiers opted for a change of pace at the beginning of the second set, scoring five points to only one from USC. Until Indiana got to game point off a kill from freshman outside hitter Jaidyn Jager, the Trojans were never down by more than three points, but they could never muster a true comeback attempt. 

The third set was more destructive from the Hoosiers, at one point going on an 11-2 run. Jager and senior opposite hitter Avry Tatum combined for 11 kills, while USC’s hitting percentage dropped by over 70 points from the first set.

“We weren’t really able to adjust fast enough. It took us way too long, and we might not have even got to that point where we adjusted to their speed,” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Leah Ford. 

Even though the final set was marked on the stat sheet by five lead changes and six tied scores, Indiana established a four-point lead midway through and never let go. 

The late-match heroics that seemed almost inevitable during the Trojan Invitational in early September seemed out of reach for the Trojans. In spite of Tvrdy’s 17 kills, the highest of her career, this important home match simply became a stepping stone to Indiana’s current place atop the Big Ten standings next to No. 1 Nebraska (12-0, 4-0 Big Ten) and No. 7 Wisconsin (9-1, 4-0 Big Ten).

“We catch up and then we let it slip, and we catch up, we let it slip,” Keller said. “There’s only so many times you’re gonna be able to do that when it starts taking a toll on you, because you start to feel like, no matter what we do, we’re not quite getting what we need out of this.”

Trojans get rolled by Purdue

The Boilermakers squad is a two-headed dragon; the defense is staunch, having the second-most digs in the Big Ten, while their offense is overpowering, with junior outside hitter Kenna Wollard and junior setter Taylor Anderson leading the conference in kills and assists, respectively.

The match against Purdue was also USC’s inaugural Pasifika Night, a night honoring Pacific Islander heritage, led by redshirt junior outside hitter Adonia Faumuina, who is of American Samoan and Tongan heritage. Former Trojan, the all-time leader in assists for women’s volleyball and fellow Samoan, Mia Tuaniga, was also in attendance.

During Pasifika Night, videos of Faumuina and her Polynesian family played on the jumbotron, the first 500 attendees would get a free Polynesian-style USC volleyball t-shirt, and between the second and third sets, a dance was performed by three Polynesian dancers. 

“It’s really a blessing to be Polynesian, be Samoan and Tongan,” Faumuina said in a video played on the jumbotron.

Set 1 was a story USC had already seen that weekend: The opponent retook the lead after going down early and maintained that lead until it seemed to be too late. A serve from freshman opposite hitter Abigail Mullen that went out of bounds put Purdue up 23-20, but kills from redshirt sophomore outside hitter London Wijay and Tvrdy brought them back within striking range. 

USC had the chance to change the narrative after the previous day’s performance, but after Faumuina committed a blocking error on an Anderson kill attempt, the Boilermakers took the set. 

The two teams continued that back-and-forth dance into the second set, tying the score 12 times. USC got ahead at 16-14, but Purdue went on an 11-2 run to soar to a 2-0 lead. The breakdown exemplified the Trojans’ defensive performance, which was tested to its limit during the match. 

“We’re gonna emphasize the discipline on defense a lot this week, more than we have in the past. And I think it’s continuing with energy, body language and staying disciplined with that too,” said senior outside hitter Dani Thomas-Nathan in a postgame news conference Saturday.

The final set was more of the same. USC sustained an early lead for a little while before Trojan attacking errors and Purdue kills gave the Boilermakers a lead they never relinquished. The Trojans were outclassed, totaling season-lows of a 0.162 hitting percentage and 33 digs. 

“It’s not the end of the world. We just had two bad losses,” Keller said. “These are things that are in our control, and we can work on and become better. That’s mindset and attitude, and we have the athletes to do that, and the coaching staff to do that.”

This week, USC will play Oregon at Galen Center on Thursday at 6 p.m. before heading to Pauley Pavilion to play UCLA on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.