No. 1 water polo enters MPSF tournament

The No. 1 USC Trojans are set to play in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championship Tournament this weekend at UCLA’s Spieker Aquatics Center.

After an 8-7 upset over the previously No. 1 UCLA Bruins in the season finale, USC will be tested once again against Stanford, Penn State Behrend and — if the Trojans win their first two games — potentially Cal or UCLA.

Junior driver Blake Edwards, who netted the game-winning goal over UCLA in the final frame last Saturday, is excited about a potential rematch with the Bruins at their own pool.

“UCLA is a fantastic team, and they really set the benchmark for all competition. The physicality of that game just demonstrated how difficult it was to beat them,” Edwards said. “You can never write off UCLA. Coming off the loss, they’re going to be extremely motivated. Playing them at their home pool will be a whole different story.”

Against the MPSF this season, USC holds an untouched 3-0 record with victories over Stanford, Cal and UCLA.

USC’s lone loss, however, did come against Cal in the Mountain Pacific Invitational, which was deemed a non-conference tournament.

Since then, the Men of Troy have rattled off 10-straight victories by an average margin of victory of over 11 goals.

Junior goalie McQuin Baron, the MPSF Player of the Week, has played lights out during that stretch, with a per-game average of 9.75 saves and just 4.42 goals allowed.

Baron was especially clutch in the Trojans’ win over the Bruins as he capped off a nine-save performance with a save in the final seconds to secure a narrow one-goal victory.

As much as Baron and the USC defense have shut down opposing offenses, freshman two-meter Matt Maier and the Trojans’ scoring attack have been equally as dominant down the stretch.

“We felt pretty confident coming off our big win against Cal,” Maier said. “We had a feeling that our time is now. We came into [the game against UCLA] with the intention of getting back at them for beating us the past two years.”

Against Stanford, a team that has allowed 6.18 goals this season, the Men of Troy netted eight goals thanks to Maier, Edwards (2), junior driver Grant Stein (2), freshmen drivers Thomas Dunstan and Marin Dasic and junior utility James Walters.

Coming off of three-straight one-goal losses to top-ranked programs UCLA, Pacific and Cal, the Cardinal are hungry for an upset. Offensively, the Cardinal have averaged 11.1 goals per game as Blake Parrish (40), Mitchell Mendoza (29) and Cody Smith (29) continue to put up big numbers.

Stanford goalie Oliver Lewis has impressed with an average of 10.0 saves and 6.83 goals allowed per game.

As for USC’s second opponent, the Penn State Behrend Lions are still winless after 23 games this season.

Along with averaging 7.69 goals on offense, the Lions have given up 428 total goals this year (18.6 goals per game).

Opposing offenses have scored 20 or more goals in seven of the 23 games.

Penn State Behrend nearly overcame Caltech with four goals apiece from Andre Sardaryzadeh and Isaak Hatopp, but lost the contest due to the Beavers’ offensive surge.

Ultimately, USC’s focus will be on winning the MPSF Championship game in order to advance to its 12th-straight NCAA tournament appearance.

“We have to treat every game like it’s the biggest game of our careers,” Maier said. “If we go into a game with that 7 and prepare the same way, if we can maintain that attitude, we can beat anyone.”