April 22, 2008

Los Angeles, CA (UWIRE) -- While the USC women's water polo team lost a hard-fought exhibition game to the U.S. Women's Nation Team on Friday, it rebounded to take its final regular season game with a victory over Long Beach State on Sunday.

The exhibition game against Team USA featured many Women of Troy, including six current national team members who formerly played at USC.

While No. 3 USC (17-6, 10-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) put up a fight, the national team was too strong in the end and won the game, 10-8.

"It was really nice to see the former girls that used to play with me," senior driver Veronika Bartunkova said. "The exhibition served its purpose. Especially when you compare it to last year, when we lost something like 9-1. We had a really strong performance this year."

It was back to reality for the Women of Troy on Sunday, as they traveled to No. 12 Long Beach State for their regular season finale.

Unlike several of its recent games in which USC has found itself in an early deficit and had to fight its way back, the team jumped out to an early lead against the 49ers (15-15, 4-8) and held on for the 10-6 win.

"I really like starting strong and kind of making a statement," Bartunkova said. "I think we learned throughout the season that it's really important to start strong. Obviously, we didn't do it on purpose, but now we focus more on the start of the game and realize how important that is."

Because the team established an early 4-1 lead, USC coach Jovan Vavic was able to dip deep into his bench and managed to give every player on the roster some time in the water.

Though the game might have seemed meaningless, it had massive playoff implications. A victory cliched a No. 3 seed and a first-round bye while a loss would have forced USC to play an opening-round game Thursday.

Bartunkova continued her hot streak offensively, netting her second hat trick of the weekend. Junior driver Michelle Stein scored another three goals while freshman two-meter Kristin Dronberger and sophomore driver Alexandra Kiss scored two apiece.

Though she enjoyed the team's offensive output against Long Beach State, Bartunkova said she prefers when more players get involved in the scoring effort.

"I think it's really good when more players contribute and more players score. We have really good depth and we can substitute five different people in the water at one time, and that's one of our biggest strengths," Bartunkova said. "It's also good for every girl's confidence to score."

The Women of Troy will face

either the No. 5 seed Arizona State or No. 12 seed Cal State Northridge this Friday at 2:30 p.m. in San Diego.

(C) 2008 Daily Trojan via UWIRE