“Jim Murray-esque” is a column by Sean Campbell that highlights all facets of USC Athletics in the style of former Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray.
When you’re writing from the pressbox, everything is just a little bit easier.
The temperature is controlled, it’s quieter — a focusing tool, not a diss at our excellent band — you get score books from every period and you go directly to postgame interviews at the final whistle. Sometimes, they even let you choose who you talk to.
I imagine USC women’s soccer feels similarly when they get to play in a stadium like Dignity Health Sports Park. This is a place where they make you pay for parking. The stands are big and high up, the walkways grand — playing a competitive game there is as close it gets to being in the bigs.
It seems both USC’s women’s soccer team and I were spoiled last time I covered the team on October 27.
As cold as I was in the bleachers during Sunday’s first round NCAA tournament matchup against Sacramento State, don’t feel bad for me — not that I thought you would. I’ve grown a bit soft since I once sat through a 100-minute high school soccer game where the challenge was trying to watch the action through a downpour while also keeping my computer running. Oh, and when I ran after the player who scored the winning goal for a quote, I fell on my ass.
I’ll get over it.
Rather than play on the turf the LA Galaxy uses, where that matchup with UCLA took place, this tournament game was held a short walk away at California State University Dominguez Hills’ Toro Stadium.
Luckily, the Trojans didn’t get soft, otherwise this game — which could have easily been confused for a scrimmage with a surprisingly high turnout due to the score — could have been confused for, well, a game.
Sacramento State only managed two shots in the first half, neither of which came particularly close to scoring a goal. And the second half didn’t look much better for the visitors, except that the Hornets managed to put one of their two shots on goal.
In that same time, USC took 20 shots, including 12 on goal.
Sacramento State felt like the little brother who uses his physical disadvantage to justify fouls — and hard ones at that — only, the Trojans didn’t humor the visitors whom USC head coach Jane Alukonis described as “stingy.” Two Sacramento State yellow cards and 14 total fouls didn’t stop USC’s dominance.
After 16 minutes of play, the Trojans had scored three times, two of which came off the boots of usual suspects, senior forward Simone Jackson and senior midfielder Helena Sampaio. And, wait, senior defender Brooklyn Courtnall got in on the action, too?
At that point USC had tied their single-game season high for goals and had all-but punched their ticket to round two, but that didn’t stop the Trojans from pushing forward.
Before the game, Alukonis told her team the biggest NCAA tournament blowout was 9-0, so after each goal, the sideline chanted “one more.”
20 substitutions, including the removal of all three initial goal scorers, gave the Trojan lineup new looks and two more goals from sophomore midfielder/forward Florianne Jourde and senior midfielder Maria Alagoa. Without those substitutions, the score very well may have gotten out of hand.
“We’re Trojans, and we always fight on,” Alukonis said postgame. “They know that’s the expectation.”
As someone who grew up just outside of Sacramento, the local college was known as a place with good dorms, never as an athletic powerhouse.
To give some context on how these two ended up together, the 64-team NCAA tournament for soccer is set up identically to basketball’s March Madness. Four groups containing No. 1 through No. 16 seeds where the winner of each group meets up in the Final Four.
After falling short in the Big Ten tournament because of a loss in penalties to Rutgers, the Trojans — now 16-1-3 — secured the last No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
The Hornets, a team plagued by ties that ended their season with a losing record (5-6-9), managed to win all three Big Sky tournament games in penalty kicks — with the final two games ending regulation tied at 0-0 — to slide into a No. 16 seed.
That statistic might make you think Sacramento is a defensive powerhouse, and maybe they were in the Big Sky, but the conference — which is a part of the FCS and typically earns just one bid in any given NCAA tournament — is certainly no Big Ten.
Despite how impressive the 5-0 win was, it was the least convincing win by a No. 1 seed this weekend. Florida State and Duke both took down their No. 16 foes 8-0 while Mississippi State won 7-0. Across the board, massive blowouts dominated the first round of the tournament.
Only five upsets took place out of the 32 games Sunday. Santa Clara, Washington, UC Berkeley and Colorado were all No. 9 or 10 seeds — meaning the played schools ranked fewer than 10 spots higher than them — and all won by a single goal or in penalties.
The only other upset occurred when UConn took down No. 6 Rutgers — the team the Trojans lost to in the Big Ten tournament. Classic.
This Friday, the Trojans’ tournament really begins with a matchup against Saint Louis University (15-1-6) who took the Atlantic 10 title in dominant fashion and played competitive regular season matches with No. 4 Penn State and No. 7 BYU.
But another matchup with a small-conference winner shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for USC, who Alukonis said “can go all the way”.
With a win, the Trojans would move on to a third-round game against No. 5 Wisconsin — who USC handled 3-0 on September 29 — or No. 4 Virginia. Again, another matchup that heavily favors the Trojans.
Should another win follow for USC, it would likely see one of No. 2 Wake Forest or No. 3 Ohio State, who the Trojans only beat 1-0 on October 17, in the quarterfinal.
I’m always down for a good ol’ marathon, this just seems like a lot of steps to find a competitive game for the Trojans and a comfortable press box for your favorite Jim Murray impersonator.
“Jim Murray-esque” runs every Thursday.