After upsetting UCLA last year at Soni McAlister Field, the USC soccer team couldn’t pull off the upset in back-to-back years over the Bruins, losing 4-2 on the road at Wallis Annenberg Stadium.
From the very beginning, both teams wanted to set the tone early by playing a brand of up-tempo, attacking soccer to try and score first. UCLA had most of the possession early on, quickly moving up the field using neat one and two touch passes.
Even though the link-up play was excellent, UCLA had trouble breaking past USC’s backline into the 18-yard box. When the Trojans would stop an attack from UCLA, they would try to move up the field and take advantage of the Bruins being up.
During the 18th minute, UCLA caught USC’s defense sleeping when junior defender Jayden Perry lofted a ball over the top of the Trojan defense into the penalty box from midfield.
It was a 50/50 ball for either UCLA junior forward Lexi Wright or USC sophomore goalkeeper Hannah Dickinson to pounce on. It was Wright who arrived first and chipped it over Dickinson on her first touch at a tough angle to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead.
The Bruins wasted no time after the first goal by moving up the field again once they retained possession, which led to chaos at the back. After a miscommunication between USC’s backline, graduate forward Ally Cook stole possession away and quickly fired a shot from the top of the box into the upper left corner to make it a 2-0 UCLA advantage.
At this point, UCLA seemed fully in control of the game, and it would be hard to shake off the reigning defending champions. USC needed some sort of break in the action in order to stay in the game, and it came on a corner kick in the 29th minute.
Freshman forward Maribel Flores whipped in a cross to the back post, where junior midfielder Aaliyah Farmer headed the ball towards goal. Graduate midfielder Kayla Duran tapped it in to narrow the deficit to 2-1.
“They say sometimes that a two-goal lead is the most dangerous lead in soccer,” USC head coach Jane Alukonis said. “Could we have rallied back from that? For sure, but I thought we responded very well.”
Right when the Trojans thought they were back into the game, UCLA senior forward Reilyn Turner spun around to the outside and played a low cross into the box, where it was deflected in for an own goal by USC to make it 3-1 in the 33rd minute.
After an action-packed first half between the two rivals, the second half became stagnant. Since UCLA had a two-goal advantage, the Bruins sat with the ball in their own end, passing between each other to bait USC into pressuring them around.
USC put pressure on to begin the half, but the pressure faded away a bit during the middle of the second half. Even though the ball was down in UCLA’s end for most of the final 45 minutes, USC didn’t have any clean looks in front of goal.
When UCLA did push on the attack in the final stages of the game, the Bruins drew a penalty after a mistimed Trojans tackle. Substitute sophomore forward Bridgette Marin-Valencia just slipped one past the diving Dickinson to seal the game and make it 4-1 in the 81st minute.
USC had one last attacking chance towards the end of the game and made it count. Junior forward Simone Jackson cut in from the wing and took a shot on her left foot at the top of the box that glided into the bottom right corner to bring it back to a two-goal game.
After being injured earlier in the season, Jackson scored her fifth goal of the season. If the Trojans want to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, a fully healthy Jackson will be a huge X-factor.
“For her confidence and the team’s confidence overall, walking away 4-2 hurts less than a larger defeat,” Alukonis said. “We know we have a lot of improvements to make, but certainly happy to get one at the end.”
USC will wait until Monday, Nov. 6 at 1 p.m. for the NCAA Selection Show, when it will find out its opponent in the first round of the NCAA tournament.