No. 5 USC Beach Volleyball Heads Crosstown for Rivalry Showdown

LOS ANGELES – The fifth-ranked USC beach volleyball team (23-7) wraps the regular season with a road dual at No. 1-ranked crosstown rival UCLA (28-4) on Thursday (April 17). The match will be shown on Big Ten Plus (B1G+) at 2:30 p.m. PT. The Trojans claimed a 3-2 win over the Bruins on the season's opening weekend in Honolulu and have won three in a row against UCLA with six wins in the teams' last 10 meetings. USC leads the all-time series, 28-20 but has won just once in eight previous clashes at Mapes Beach. Following the Feb. 22 loss to the Trojans, UCLA went on a 17-dual win streak but has since suffered its other three losses over the course of the last nine matches. The Bruins went 4-0 in last weekend's Center of Effort Challenge with 3-2 wins over No. 1 TCU, No. 4 LMU, and No. 5 Stanford.

THIS WEEK
Mapes Beach • Los Angeles, Calif.

MATCH #31 • Thursday, April 17 • 2:30 p.m. PT
No. 5 USC (23-7) at No. 1 UCLA (28-4)
SERIES HISTORY: USC leads, 28-20 (.583)
STREAK: Won 3 • LAST 10: 6-4
LAST MEETING: W 3-2 (Feb. 22, 2025 • Honolulu, Hawai'i)
OPPONENT WEBSITE: UCLABruins.com

BARE E-SAND-SHELLS • TL;DR

USC has won the last four NCAA championships and owns seven national titles including the first NCAA crown awarded in 2016 (AVCA '15, NCAA '16, '17, '21, '22, '23, '24).
The Trojans own five Pac-12 titles (2016, '17, '19, '22, '24).
USC is 165-27 (.859) under sixth-year head coach Dain Blanton.
The Women of Troy are ranked No. 5 in the AVCA poll. It is the 121st time (of 121) USC is ranked. The Trojans have ranked in the top five 118 times and have also held the No. 1 spot a record 50 times.
The Trojans have won three in a row over crosstown rival UCLA and are 6-4 in the last 10 meetings. Despite owning a 28-20 record in the all-time series, the Women of Troy have beaten the Bruins just once in eight previous visits to Mapes Beach.
USC has produced 19 wins over ranked foes this spring including nine against opponents in the top 10 with six of those against teams in the top five. The Trojans are 11-15 all-time against teams ranked No. 1.
So. Zoey Henson and Jr. Madison White are 21-6 at the No. 1 position.
The Trojans' No. 2 pair of Fr. Kennedy Coakley and So. Ashley Pater have produced a 24-2 record together and have won 20 straight matches (the program's ninth longest win streak).
Gr. Ella Larkin (81-24), Jr. Madison White (78-23), and Gr. Maya Gessner (66-33) lead the Trojans in career victories. All of White's wins are with USC. Just behind that trio is So. Ashley Pater at 57-7 in her career.
Through 30 duals, USC has employed 20 different lineups with 31 different pairs.
USC has celebrated 15 AVCA All-Americans and 32 individual certificates.

LAST TIME OUT: The Trojans claimed third place at the Center of Effort Challenge hosted by third-ranked Cal Poly last weekend. USC collected a 4-1 win over No. 7 Florida State to open the tournament and then upended the host Mustangs, 3-2, to spoil Cal Poly's Senior Night festivities. The Trojans then fell in a hard-fought 3-2 decision to No. 5 Stanford before closing the tourney with a 3-2 win over fourth-ranked Loyola Marymount. USC's top pair of Zoey Henson and Madison White went 3-1 and moved to 21-6 on the season while its No. 2 pair of Kennedy Coakley and Ashley Pater extended their win streak to 20 matches with a 4-0 mark on the weekend to improve to 24-2. Still battling injuries along the lineup, the Trojans employed their 20th different lineup and utilized their 30th and 31st pairings to get through the weekend in San Luis Obispo.

NEW DIGS: USC plays its first season as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in 2025. The Trojans were members of the Pac-12 from 2016 through 2024 and won five conference titles (2016-17, '19, '22, 24) including the first (2016) and final crown awarded in 2024. With the dissolution of the league, USC moved to the MPSF and is joined by UCLA, California, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, and Grand Canyon. The first MPSF beach volleyball tournament will be played April 23-25 on Spiker Beach in Huntington Beach, Calif. The champion of the seven-team league will receive the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA championship.

A B1G DEAL: USC's home duals will be shown live on Big Ten Plus streams this spring. As part of a new agreement between the MPSF and the Big Ten Network, beach volleyball and men's volleyball contests at member schools will be carried on Big Ten Plus and are available inventory for BTN linear broadcasts. Check USCTrojans.com for links to live streams and broadcast information.

ROAD WARRIORS: The Trojans play 27 of their 31 regular-season duals on the road. USC will take a total of six trips (one to Laguna Beach) in the regular season. Last year, including trips to play in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments, the Women of Troy took eight trips in total.

POLL POSITION: USC opened the 2025 season ranked No. 1 in the AVCA Collegiate Beach preseason poll. The Women of Troy have been ranked in every AVCA poll for a total of 121 weeks. USC has also been ranked in the top five of the poll 118 times. The Trojans held that top-five distinction for 63 consecutive weeks from its inception until March 2, 2020. USC first seized the No. 1 ranking in both the AVCA and Volleyball Magazine polls on March 23, 2015, following a victory over then No. 1-ranked Hawai'i on the road and held the ranking for the rest of 2015. USC has been ranked No. 1 in 50 AVCA polls, the most all-time. The Trojans, Pepperdine, Hawai'i, UCLA, LSU, Florida State, and TCU are the only seven teams ever to hold the top spot in the poll. USC is 159-20 all-time when ranked No. 1.

NUMERO UNO: USC has faced the No. 1-ranked team 26 times and owns an 11-15 record in those duals. The last time the Trojans played the top-ranked team in the country, a No. 2 USC defeated No. 1 UCLA, 4-1, on April 18, 2024, at Merle Norman Stadium.

1-2 PUNCH: The Trojans have played in 35 1v2 matchups and are 20-15 all-time in such duals. USC caught a 1-2 match on the first weekend of 2025 and claimed a 3-2 win over No. 2-ranked TCU. In 2024, USC was 4-3 in 1v2 matches and was 0-1 in 2023; 1-1 in 2022; and 4-3 in 2021. In 2019, USC was part of 1v2 matches six times and went 3-3. USC was 2-1in 2017 and went 4-1 in 2016 but didn't play any such matches in 2015. In three 1-vs-2 duals in 2014, USC went 1-2. Overall, USC is 12-10 when ranked No. 1 and 8-5 when ranked No. 2.

NATIONAL DRAW: The Trojan duo of freshman Kennedy Coakley and sophomore Ashley Pater were chosen as the AVCA/CBVB National Pair of the Week on April 7. The tandem went 4-0 to help USC go 4-0 at Best in the West and improved to 20-2 on the season with a 16-match win streak. Coakley-Pater collected USC's record 12th AVCA national pair of the week award, a career first for each student-athlete. Last year, a record three different Trojan pairs were selected for the honor: Megan Kraft and Delaynie Maple (March 17), Audrey Nourse and Nicole Nourse (April 28), and Maddi Kriz and Madison White (May 7).

Players Mentioned

Kennedy Coakley

Maya Gessner

Zoey Henson

Megan Kraft

Maddi Kriz

Ella Larkin

Delaynie Maple

Audrey Nourse

Nicole Nourse

Ashley Pater

Madison White