Mixed fortunes for USD in women’s soccer, volleyball openers

Women’s soccer falls 4-1 to Pepperdine while volleyball sweeps St. Mary’s and Portland

Eric Boose / Sports Editor

Rough first half dooms San Diego in loss to Waves

The visiting Pepperdine Waves scored three goals in eleven minutes, and added a fourth right before the final whistle as they cruised past USD, 4-1, in the Toreros’ women’s soccer season opener on Friday. 

The visitors opened the scoring in the 20th minute with an opportunity created from a corner kick, then added goals number two and three in the 30th and 31st minutes. Pepperdine’s junior defender Trinity Watson, who scored the first goal, assisted the second, lofting a free kick into the penalty area, which fellow defender, senior Emily Sample, got her head to, arcing the ball over the outstretched arm of the Toreros’ sophomore goalkeeper Ellyn Casto. Less than a minute later, the Waves added a third. A San Diego defender played a sloppy pass infield from the wing, which midfielder Tori Waldeck intercepted. A few touches later, she was through on goal, and while Casto did well to save Waldeck’s shot, the Pepperdine first-year gathered the rebound and put the ball past the sprawling USD keeper. 

Sophomore Eden Quiroz, who was named to the All-WCC Freshman Team last season, called Friday’s game “not us.”

“I don’t think we played the best soccer at all,” Quiroz said. “There were a lot of times during the game where it felt like some people were on the right page and others weren’t. There was a miscommunication throughout the team.”

The Waves out-shot the Toreros 15-0 in the first half, and led 3-0 after the first 45 minutes. While USD’s struggles to create chances didn’t help their defense, Quiroz was not too worried for the future. 

“Especially because we were playing defense a lot of the time, we need the ball to stay up there so we’re not just constantly running,” Quiroz said. “We need to put people under pressure and be able to stay calm and collected on the ball and make them feel pressure instead of us.”

The trend continued into the second half, as it took San Diego until the 64th minute to manage their first shot of the match. They would finish with only three (to Pepperdine’s 23), with only one of them on target. That came in the 72nd minute, when USD was awarded a penalty kick, which first-year forward Lexi Kaz buried to deny Pepperdine the shutout. 

The visitors would have the last laugh, however, as in the 89th minute, Waves midfielder Leyla McFarland latched on to a long ball over the top, dribbled into the 18-yard box, beat her defender, and tucked the ball past Casto to restore her team’s three-goal advantage. 

In their postgame report, Pepperdine athletics quoted Waves head coach Tim Ward as saying, “We probably should have had more than four but we’ll take it.” The reason they only had four, USD keeper Ellyn Casto, was one of the game’s bright spots for the Toreros. In her first start for San Diego, the sophomore finished a very busy afternoon with eight saves, earning praise from her teammate, Quiroz.

“She really stood out to me because she saved us a lot,” Quiroz, who was playing center back, said. “She came up with some really incredible saves.”

Despite the result, head coach Lou Lieberman was pleased with her team’s effort in the second half.

“I like how our team fought back and tried to get the game back in the second half, and I thought that they made some improvements and some adjustments that worked well, so I’m proud of them,” Lieberman said. “We have a strong group of girls. Mentally, physically, we have a strong group … And I’m truly excited about their growth that is going to happen this spring. When you get three goals scored on you, it’s disappointing, no doubt, but I’m so optimistic about the game changing during a game.”

Growth for the future was a theme in Lieberman’s post-match comments; she emphasized that the team was only going to improve throughout the season.

“It’s a young team … so just them having the experience is going to help them be more confident, get better at this level that they’ve never played in,” Lieberman said. “With time on the field, playing games, it’s only going to get better and better. For me, it’s exciting to see the growth that’s going to happen in these next eight weeks.”

Even though it was against a West Coast Conference opponent, Friday’s game was part of USD’s non-conference schedule, meaning it will not affect conference standings. The Toreros continued their non-conference schedule on Tuesday, falling 3-0 to No. 4 UCLA in Los Angeles. They open WCC play on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m., hosting 10th-ranked BYU. San Diego will get another crack at Pepperdine when the two teams meet in Malibu on April 3.

No. 18 Toreros overpower Gaels and Pilots

USD Volleyball had to wait an extra two weeks, but finally got their season off to a flying start, sweeping a pair of two-match series against St. Mary’s and Portland, only losing one set across the four matches last week. 

The Toreros roared out of the gates in their season opener against St. Mary’s on Feb. 7, racking up three aces in the first four serves, winning the first set 25-14 en route to a 3-0 sweep of the Gaels. St. Mary’s got off to a strong start in the second set, building an 8-3 lead early, but junior Laura Madill and senior Roxie Wiblin powered an 8-0 scoring run to give San Diego the lead, which they never gave back, winning the set 25-22. The third set was a somewhat similar story. Wiblin, this time with help from redshirt sophomore Lauren Turner, led a 7-0 scoring run to give the hosts a lead they never relinquished, finishing off the sweep with a 25-16 win. 

The Toreros and Gaels were back inside the Jenny Craig Pavilion the very next day, Feb. 8, for their second meeting, which turned out to be a far closer match than the one only a day earlier. Despite sweeping the visitors from Moraga, USD won all three sets by four points or less — 25-23, 25-21, and 25-22, respectively. The first set was tied at 23 before a pair of kills from Wiblin gave her team a 1-0 advantage. And while the Toreros took the lead early in the second set, St. Mary’s never went away, bringing the score to 23-21 before San Diego scored the final two points to go 2-0 up in the match. The final set was just as closely contested as the ones before it. USD led by no more than five, and the teams were within three points of each other for almost the entire set.

While Wiblin led the Toreros with 31 kills across the two matches, Madill was setting everything up. She finished with 35 assists in the first match and 36 in the second, out-assisting the entire St. Mary’s team, 71-53 in total. 

Two days later, Wiblin and Madill both had career nights in the first of two matches against the Portland Pilots. Wiblin recorded 20 kills (matching her career high), added three aces to bring her points total to a career-best 23, and made 14 digs to make it a double-double. Madill set up everything for the Toreros offensively, recording an astonishing career-high 49 assists in San Diego’s 3-1 win. 

USD won all three of their sets by double digits, only dropping the fiercely contested second set, 30-28. And they could have won that set. The Toreros were leading 24-21, needing only a point to win, but a service error by Madill allowed the Pilots back into it. Portland went on a run, eventually taking the lead, 25-24, forcing a win-by-two situation. Each team had opportunities to get the two-point margin they needed to claim the set, but neither could finish them. With the set tied at 28, the visitors finally found back-to-back kills, but it did little more than prevent the Toreros sweeping the match, as San Diego won sets three and four to finish the match. 

Portland would get no such consolation prize the next day. Sophomore Grace Frohling led the scoring with 13 kills and four aces as the Toreros swept the Pilots. Portland only managed nine points in the first set, and only 10 in the third, the closest set being the second, which USD won 25-17. 

Already, the Toreros have earned the ranking of 18th overall in the nation, and their 4-0 start to the season put them level with BYU and Pepperdine for first place in the West Coast Conference. San Diego kept their winning streak rolling to start this week, defeating Santa Clara 3-1 on Tuesday, the first of two back-to-back meetings between the two teams. The Toreros will play the Broncos again on Wednesday at 2 p.m. before back-to-back meetings with Gonzaga in Spokane on Feb. 19 and 20. Both of those games start at noon.