The energy was palpable in Uytengsu Aquatic Center Sunday afternoon. The Trojans were confident, coming off their win against No. 8 UCSB. USC was looking to continue its winning ways against a UCI team that the Trojans beat in their past 35 meetings.
USC came out a bit sluggish against UCSB Friday but was able to rattle off seven straight goals to pull out the win. Although UCI is ranked only one spot behind UCSB in the national polls, Sunday’s game was much more dominant for the No. 5 Trojans, who pulled out a 16-10 win against the Anteaters.
From the opening sprint, it was clear that USC had the edge. The Trojans drew a penalty just seconds into the game. Graduate driver Massimo Di Martire converted the penalty shot to give the Trojans a lead which they would never relinquish.
Di Martire contributed three more goals over the course of the game and finished with four in total to bump his season total up to 36 goals. Despite his crushing performance, Di Martire felt that some improvements could be made before the team faces No. 14 San Jose State Saturday.
“I made a lot of mistakes on defense,” Di Martire said. “We have to keep practicing and training as we are doing. We need to face every match as the final.”
Head coach Marko Pintaric had only positive things to say about the Italian newcomer.
“Solid game for [Di Martire],” Pintaric said. “He always produces a lot of good points for us.”
But the game did not solely rest on Di Martire’s shoulders. In total, 10 different Trojans contributed goals. Redshirt senior driver Ashworth Molthen, sophomore driver Jake Carter and redshirt sophomore utility Reed Stemler contributed two goals apiece.
“We just kept rotating more people,” Pintaric said. “We are in the process of really evaluating and giving chances to more than just 14 players. We played our older groups a little more in this game and changed the rotation a little bit.”
The USC defense looked formidable all game, except for a few sporadic moments where the effort relented a bit. The Trojans had eight steals in the game, a result from Pintaric’s recent focus on defensive improvement.
“The emphasis was to fix the defense and to play for the goalies more,” Pintaric said, “and that’s a campaign we’ve been on since the last loss in the NorCal Tournament.”
The defense was not without its faults, though. The Trojans allowed sophomore center Tyler Padua and sophomore attacker Dylan Patist to score three goals each:
“We did make mistakes,” Pintaric said. “We need to keep emphasizing defense. The 10 goals we allowed is 10 too many. We’re going to analyze these mistakes and see how we can improve and eliminate them. Irvine is a dangerous team with dangerous shooters – if you don’t tighten up the defense, you don’t have a chance of winning the games.”
Despite the Trojans’ Sunday performance, the team knows that the work does not stop with the win over UC Irvine.
“We have a goal here,” Di Martire said. “We want to be undefeated for the whole season. Our goal and our purpose is to win every game here, until the end of the season.”
To fulfill that goal, the Trojans will have to carry this momentum into their upcoming games. USC will eventually face No. 2 Cal in two weeks, but right now, the Trojans are focused on taking on No. 14 San Jose State on Saturday.