Titans Of Troy 9/16: Shattered Records

On September 9, USC Athletics was undefeated in head-to-head competition. The football, water polo, volleyball and soccer teams had combined for a record of 16-0-1.

Needless to say, that record got shattered this weekend.

In addition to the football team's loss to Boston College, the women's volleyball team lost its first two home games of the season to Texas A&M and Florida. The loss to the Aggies came in a five-set crusher, with the final set being a 16-14 loss. It ended with a Trojan spike going just out of bounds.The loss to the Gators was in straight sets, but with each set being decided by three points or less. With those losses to SEC teams, the Women of Troy, like their football counterparts, have plummeted out of the top 10 in the American Vollyeball Coaches Association (AVCA) poll.

With all these losses, the pickings for our Titans of Troy are much slimmer than last week, but we've come up with a few goodies, including a top pick that gives a nod to the future of USC's most successful program of recent years.

5.) Kris Albarado, Football

Yeah, yeah, it's not very encouraging if one of the few positives of the week for your football team is your punter, but it was really impressive to see Kris Albarado recover from a terrible snap and manage to get off a solid punt that bounced inside the twenty. With two BC rushers right on top of him looking for the block, he had to thread the needle like never before.

4.) Silas Redd, Alumni

Did we mention that alumni can be included on this list? No? WELL WE'RE DOING IT NOW!

It's been a tough road to the NFL for Mr. Silas Redd. After going undrafted, he got picked up by the Washington [CHANGE THE NAME DAN]s as a free agent and made his way onto the final roster as the third-string RB. In the final minutes of a blowout win against Jacksonville, Redd ran 14 yards into the end zone for his first career NFL TD.

3.) Kayla Mills, Soccer

As part of Trojan Futbol's 3-0 victory over Pacific on Friday, Kayla Mills launched a beautiful cross-net chip shot from the right side to get her second goal of the season.

2.) Tamara Mejia, Soccer

The junior forward had her most successful weekend to date, scoring a wide-angle goal from the left side against Pacific and then serving an assist to Katie Johnson in a 1-1 draw against UC Irvine. After the Pacific win, Tamara Mejia spoke with teammate and future Pac-12 Network soccer analyst Jamie Fink.

USC soccer is now 5-0-2 and will close out non-conference play with home games against Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Pepperdine this weekend.

Honorable mention goes to freshman tennis player Gabby Smith, who went 3-0 to start her singles career as a Trojan at Baylor's invitational tournament this past weekend. Her victories included two against ranked opponents from Texas and Texas A&M.

And now our pick for Top Titan of Troy, or rather Titans, because this week it goes to two freshmen on the USC water polo squad:

1.) Matteo Morelli and Grant Stein

While last week saw the rise of Kostas Genidounias as the team's new senior leader, this week saw the newest member's of Jovan Vavic's team make their presence felt at the Inland Empire Classic at Redlands. Several freshmen got valuable experience in the pool, and Matteo Morelli and Grant Stein led the way.

Morelli, an import from Naples, scored 14 goals in four games over the weekend, including five against Chapman. Stein, who hails from the Palm Desert, built a five-goal game of his own against Air Force and a weekend total of 13 goals.

Next weekend presents the first big test for this year's team: the NorCal Tournament in Berkeley. The Big Four of water polo -- USC, Stanford, UCLA, and Cal -- will all participate in the tournament, and the Trojans will get their first look at the top contenders that will try to end their dynasty later this fall.