Around the League: USC women’s water polo ends winning streak with Stanford loss
The No. 2 Stanford women’s water polo team upset No. 1 USC on Saturday afternoon to break the Trojans’ NCAA women’s water polo record 52-game win streak. No. 3 UCLA will play the Cardinal this Saturday on the road. (Daily Bruin file photo)
While Bruin athletes continue competing in Westwood, here’s a look at some of the biggest news from the rest of the Pac-12 and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Women’s water polo
Michael Hull, assistant Sports editor
The second water polo win-streak record of the year came to an end Saturday.
Like the UCLA team that had an NCAA-record 57 consecutive wins heading into a match at Uytengsu Aquatics Center last fall, the No. 1 USC women’s water polo team had an NCAA women’s water polo record 52 wins going into a home match against No. 2 Stanford this weekend.
It left looking at a 12-8 loss, its first at home in over two years.
The Cardinal jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first two and a half minutes of the game with opening scores from freshman Makenzie Fischer and senior Jamie Neushul, and would never lose the lead.
With 4:09 left in the fourth quarter, Stanford was up by six goals, 12-6. Five players had two goals, and seven got on the board for the Cardinal.
Stanford senior goalie Gabby Stone finished the game with 11 saves. USC’s Stephania Haralabidis, the leading scorer in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, was held to just one goal on five shots.
The Trojans, as a whole, shot less than 27 percent as a team. Their eight goals are less than 40 percent of what they had been averaging on offense going into the weekend’s contest.
USC will look to rebound on the road when it faces No. 5 California on Saturday.
As for the Cardinal? They’ll play the No. 3 Bruins.
Men’s volleyball
Grant Sugimura, assistant Sports editor
With the regular season coming to a close, the final Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament seedings have been finalized.
At the top spot, the No. 1 seeded Long Beach State will take on No. 8 seed USC.
On the year, the series between the two Southern California teams is tied at one apiece.
In the second match, No. 5 seed UCLA goes up against No. 4 seed UC Irvine – another series tied at 1-1.
The final two games will see No. 6 seed Pepperdine fly out to the 50th state to face No. 3 seed Hawai’i and No. 7 seed Stanford traveling to No. 2 seed BYU.
In both cases, the higher ranked team holds the season series 2-0.
Men’s tennis
Hanson Wang, assistant Sports editor
The top four teams in the Pac-12 were scheduled to face each other last weekend, and despite rain postponing one match, the Bruins emerged as the conference leader with two weeks remaining in the regular season.
No. 5 USC, No. 10 UCLA, No. 12 California and No. 19 Stanford each won its first two Pac-12 dual matches, but the Cardinal handed the Trojans a 4-1 loss Friday. USC won the doubles point then lost all six first sets in singles play, as Stanford pulled off four consecutive victories for the upset.
Cal’s match versus UCLA was rained out Friday, so the Golden Bears only faced off against the Trojans on Saturday. Similar to its match against Stanford, USC won the doubles point but dropped four first sets in singles. This time, the Trojans won three straight singles matches for a 4-0 sweep, but the final margin was closer than the score indicated. Cal’s Florian Lakat and J.T. Nishimura were both a game away from winning their matches in straight sets, while Andre Goransson was only one point away from a win as well.
With the weekend’s results, UCLA is in first place with a 3-0 conference record, while USC, Stanford and Cal are 3-1, 3-1 and 2-1 respectively.
