Courtesy: USC Athletics
USC women’s water polo is locked in with its 21st consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, looking for the program’s eighth national championship when the Trojans head to Indianapolis next week. The No. 3 seed in this 2025 bracket, USC (27-4) opens up against Harvard (26-6) in the NCAA Quarterfinals on May 9 at the IU Natatorium.
USC has been a top-three team in the nation all season and earned the No. 2 seed for the 2025 MPSF Tournament. Under the direction of head coach Casey Moon for the second full season, USC had four Trojans earn All-MPSF honors this year, including Olympians and First Team honorees Tilly Kearns and Emily Ausmus, who became the third Trojan all-time to be named MPSF Newcomer of the Year. Sophomore Rachel Gazzaniga picked up a spot on the All-MPSF Second Team, and freshman Alma Yaacobi earned All-MPSF Honorable Mention as well as a spot on the MPSF All-Newcomer Team alongside Ausmus. Kearns, Gazzaniga and Ava Stryker are the Trojans’ returning All-Americans for a 2025 USC team averaging 17.3 goals per game in the program’s most high-powered offensive seasons in history. This is the first time a USC team has scored more than 500 goals in a single season.
This year’s National Collegiate field includes six automatic qualifiers from conference championships and three at-large teams. Seven teams qualify directly to the championship field, and the remaining two teams will compete in an Opening Round game on May 7. That winner will advance to quarterfinal games set for May 9, with semifinals held May 10 and the NCAA Championship game set for 12 p.m .ET on May 11. All games will be played at IU Natatorium in Indianapolis, Ind. Quarterfinals and semifinals will stream live on NCAA.com, and the NCAA Championship game will be televised on ESPNU and streamed on ESPN+.
Earning automatic berths this year are Stanford (MPSF), Harvard (CWPA), Loyola Marymount (Golden Coast), Hawai’i (Big West), McKendree (WWPA) and Wagner (MAAC). This year’s at-large teams are California, UCLA and USC — all out of the MPSF.
Winners of seven previous national championships, USC holds a 41-15 all-time record in NCAA tournaments. The Trojans last won it all in 2021. Last year, the Trojans entered NCAA action in Berkeley with a 18-8 record after a fourth-place finish in the 2024 MPSF Tournament. USC opened the 2024 NCAA Tournament against Stanford in the quarterfinals and fell 8-3 to the Cardinal.
USC’s first national title came in 1999 before the NCAA sponsored women’s water polo. In 2004, USC posted the first-ever undefeated season on the way to capturing the 2014 NCAA title. USC’s third title came in 2010 — the last time the Trojans swept the MPSF coach, player and newcomer awards — in a championship won over Stanford. Three years later in 2013, the Trojans topped the Cardinal in tripe sudden-death overtime — the longest NCAA final in history — to claim a fourth national championship for USC. In another three years, USC was back on top once more, posting a second undefeated season en route to the 2016 NCAA Championship in another epic battle against Stanford. The 2018 campaign brought USC its sixth crown in a defensive 5-4 win over Stanford at the Trojans’ Uytengsu Aquatics Center. In 2021, USC overpowered UCLA with an 18-9 final win that set an NCAA record for goals scored and margin of victory in a final and secured USC’s seventh national championship.
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