A late surge by the Bruins wasn’t enough to get a win in their last regular season game.
The Woolsey fire filled the skies over Uytengsu Aquatics Center with smoke Saturday and caused ash to fall into the pool as No. 1 USC (28-1, 2-1 MPSF) defeated No. 2 UCLA (20-3, 1-2) 12-11.
Despite the continuous flurries of ash in the air, senior attacker Austin Rone said the Bruins didn’t let the bad air quality affect their play in the water.
“Once you got into the game, you don’t focus on it,” Rone said. “I don’t think it affected anyone’s breathing today.”
The Trojans held an 11-7 lead with just over six minutes left in the fourth quarter, but the Bruins battled back to even the score.
UCLA scored four consecutive goals to tie the game at 11-11 with 2:24 remaining. Sophomore attacker Nicolas Saveljic scored the first two of those goals to cap off a game-high-tying and career-tying four goals.
“Nicolas hit some really nice shots,” said coach Adam Wright. “It was nice for him to get us into a position where we had a chance.”
With 19 seconds to go in the contest, the Trojans found the back of the net to go up 12-11. A last-second shot by sophomore attacker Chasen Travisano hit the post as cheers roared from the USC faithful.
“From a game like this, you can see when we do things the right way we put ourselves in a position to be successful,” Wright said. “When we don’t, we make things very difficult for ourselves”
Freshman attacker Jake Cavano completed a hat trick just before halftime to bring the Bruins within one goal. In both the first and second quarters, USC outscored UCLA 4-3, and took an 8-6 lead going into halftime.
The Bruins had 13 shots compared to 20 by the Trojans in the first half. UCLA improved to 18 shots in the second half, but never held a lead in the game.
A scoreless third quarter preceded UCLA’s fourth quarter in which they outscored USC 5-2. Cavano attributed the success to offensive opportunities.
“We just started hitting our shots,” Cavano said. “More guys started stepping up and seeing the looks that they had.”
Redshirt junior goalie Alex Wolf and the Bruins gave up one goal over nine minutes and 18 seconds from the end of the third quarter and into the fourth. Wright said the defensive improvement down the stretch confirmed that UCLA can match up with any opponent.
“Our defense was much better (in the fourth quarter),” Wright said. “We can absolutely play with the top team in the country.”
The intensity of the annual Crosstown Splashdown was amplified by a full stadium of both USC and UCLA fans. Rone said he could feel the emotions during the game.
“It’s always fun to play your rival team,” Rone said. “If you’re not nervous then you don’t care enough.”
The 167th meeting between the two storied programs held major seeding implications for the MPSF Tournament this upcoming weekend.
With a loss, UCLA is the fourth seed and will play either Austin College or Penn State Behrend on Friday. If the Bruins win that game, they will face No. 1-seeded Stanford in the semi-finals.