Oct. 1, 2012

Nikola Vavic became just the third Trojan since 2001 to score six goals in a single game when he set a new career high for himself during USC's 14-5 championship win over UC Santa Barbara in the SoCal Tournament title match. For his dominating effort in a busy winning week for the Trojans, Vavic has picked up his second MPSF Player of the Week award this year.

In the SoCal Tournament championship match, Vavic had a hat trick in the first period of play, scoring USC's first three goals on the way to finishing the tournament with a grand total of 14 goals. That effort went along with two goal scored just the day before the tournament began, and with 16 goals across USC's five games this week Vavic took over at No. 14 all-time in career scoring at USC, now holding 133 goals midway through his junior season.

In addition to his career-high six goals vs. No. 6 UC Santa Barbara in the championship game, Vavic served up three in the semifinals vs. No. 5 UC Irvine, one against No. 8 Pacific and four vs. No. 19 St. Francis to start the tourney. Against Princeton in a nonconference game on Friday, Vavic scored twice to spark a busy week for the Trojan junior.

No. 1 USC remains undefeated at 14-0 with the Princeton win and SoCal Tournament championship run, which marked USC's ninth SoCal title in the past decade. Vavic's MPSF Player of the Week win is USC's third straight pick, as Vavic earned his first career selection two weeks ago, followed by Kostas Genidounias' win last week leading into Vavic's latest heroics.

The undefeated Trojans are now set up for a key MPSF matchup at Stanford this weekend. USC visits the Cardinal for a Pac-12 Networks televised event in a 9 a.m. game on Saturday (Oct. 6) at Stanford's Avery Aquatic Center.