Women of Troy claim third place in UCI Invite


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No. 2 USC earned third place in the UC Irvine Invitational over the weekend, claiming three wins and suffering one loss to No. 3 UCLA.

After defeating No. 20 Long Beach State 11-3 and LMU 8-6 on Saturday, the Women of Troy (11-2) fell in the semifinals to No. 3 UCLA 8-7 before bouncing back on Sunday to best No. 4 Cal 9-6 for third place.

Sunday was a tale of two fourth quarters for USC. Against UCLA, the Women of Troy were outscored 3-0 in the final period to lose to UCLA. They held an 8-6 lead over Cal after three periods, and extended their lead by a goal in the fourth.

Senior driver Nadia Dan, junior two-meter Patricia Jancso, junior driver Dominique Sardo, and freshman driver Monica Vavic each scored six goals total to lead USC in the four matches played over the weekend.

Against Long Beach State, Vavic led all scorers with a hat trick. Sophomore Flora Bolonyai and senior Morgan Vickers shared time in the cage in the strong defensive effort, with Bolonyai tallying five saves and Vickers tallying four.

USC had a 4-2 lead over LMU at halftime, but the two Los Angeles schools traded goals in the final two periods to round out at an 8-6 victory for the Women of Troy.

In the semifinals, the Women of Troy took a 7-5 lead into the final period before collapsing, giving up three goals while scoring none to take a heartbreaking 8-7 loss.

USC managed to bounce back from the loss to its crosstown rival by beating fellow rival Cal 9-6 in the third-place game.

Bolonyai started all the matches between the pipes and tallied 27 saves over the four matches while giving up 22 goals.

Ten Women of Troy players scored a total 35 goals in the four matches.