Men’s water polo blasts past Pepperdine in a 3-0 weekend


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USC men's water polo player holds the ball above his head while looking toward his left side.
The Trojans closed the weekend with three straight wins. They are currently 5-0. (Andrew Kerner | Daily Trojan)

Men’s water polo netted 22 goals in a home win over Pepperdine Saturday, continuing from their success Sunday with blowout victories over Occidental and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps en route to an undefeated 5-0 start to the season.

The Trojans’ usual set of stars came to play in the 22-7 win over the Waves. Junior driver Marcus Longton led all scorers with five goals, while fellow junior driver Chris Sturtevant and senior 2-meter Jake Ehrhardt smashed in four a piece. The strong attack included 14 assists from 19 open play goals.

“It was a lot of our team coming together. We’ve just kind of finally started to get the whole entire team together because we had guys away for the Olympics,” Longton said. “It was a combination of people playing their roles and setting me up in a position to score goals.”

Against the Waves, the team also unleashed another critical aspect of their offense: senior goalie Nic Porter. Porter often initiated the attack from his own half, peppering the ball across the pool to set up drivers in deep positions. The 2021 All-America First Team goalie tallied an assist and numerous key passes that caught the Pepperdine defense out of position.

Speaking of defense, USC suffocated Pepperdine with constant on-ball pressure, limited the visitors to a .250 shot conversion rate and only allowed two goals in the second half.

“[We’re] t​​rying to be a defensive team first. [We] always put that as the number one priority in our game,” said head coach Marko Pintaric. “The guys took it [seriously]. We set up the goal for … the third quarter to not concede a goal. Same for fourth and we almost achieved [that].”

The Trojans continued their defensive showing on Sunday in the Inland Empire Classic, holding Occidental and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps to three and five goals, respectively. 

Pintaric played almost every player on the roster on Sunday’s doubleheader. 13 different Trojans scored in an easy 23-3 win over the Occidental Tigers.

Against the Stags, the Trojans rattled off five unanswered scores in the first period and never looked back. As USC defeated Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 16-5. Longton knotted an efficient three goals on four shots. and redshirt senior driver Jacob Mercep chipped in two. Mercep now sits seventh in the Trojans’ all-time scoring list with 165 goals. While pleased with their early success, the Trojans keep their eyes on the bigger picture, readying themselves for deep MPSF and NCAA tournament runs.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do in practice, and there’s definitely opponents out there who are preparing for us already. So we’re doing the same for them,” Ehrhardt said. “We really got to focus and dial in for the next three weeks before these big MPSF games. And then we’re going to go from there.”

Men’s water polo is back in action at the Aggie Roundup in Davis next weekend. USC will play San Jose State Friday at 1 p.m. then Santa Clara and UC Davis on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., respectively.