USC junior middle blocker Mia Tvrdy turned in the kind of defensive week that gets noticed across the Big Ten.
The conference named Tvrdy its Defensive Player of the Week on Monday, Sept. 21, after the La Vista, Neb., native helped power USC’s week of play from Sept. 14-20. It’s the first weekly honor of her career and the first earned by a Trojan in 2026.
The award also adds another line to USC’s early Big Ten history. The Trojans have now collected 16 conference weekly honors all-time, after finishing with four in 2024 and 11 more in 2025 during their first year as league members.
Tvrdy’s biggest statement came in a three-set win over UC Santa Barbara, when she matched the Big Ten’s rally-scoring era record with 16 blocks, including one solo. That total is the most by a Big Ten player since Purdue’s Raven Colvin reached 16 in a four-set match against Maryland in 2022. Looking across both the rally-scoring and sideout-scoring eras, Tvrdy’s 16 blocks tied for the second-highest total by a Big Ten player and for the third-best individual performance in conference history.
Her night also carved out a place in USC’s record book. Tvrdy set the Trojans’ single-match standard for blocks in the rally-scoring 25-point era, and her 16-block outing is the program’s top total in the rally-scoring era overall since All-American middle blocker Emily Adams had 18 in a five-set match in 2004. With the sideout-scoring era included, her 16 blocks sit seventh all-time at USC and trail only Leslie Devereaux’s 17 from 1985 for the best mark since then.
Across three matches, Tvrdy piled up 23 blocks in 10 sets, good for a 2.30 blocks-per-set average. She also posted a career-high four digs in the 3-0 win against UCSB and finished with 22 kills, averaging 3.45 points per set over the three-match stretch.
USC, ranked No. 23 and sitting at 6-4, now turns to Big Ten play on the road. The Trojans open conference action Thursday, Sept. 24, at Northwestern, where they’ll face the 7-4 Wildcats at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Ill., at 7 p.m.
CT (5 p.m. PT).
USC then heads to Champaign, Ill., for a Saturday, Sept. 26 matchup with Illinois, which is 8-3, at Huff Hall at 7 p.m. CT (5 p.m.
PT). Both matches will be shown live on Big Ten Plus streams.
USC is 36-14 in all-time conference openers and 15-9 when beginning league play on the road.
In Other News...
Oregon Now Has One More USC Threat To Worry About
As USC builds toward its matchup with Oregon on Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the quieter storylines around the Trojans is the possible return of defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart. Lincoln Riley offered an update on Stewarts status this week, and the early-read is encouraging for a player USC has not had available this season because of a foot injury.
Stewart is still working his way back, but the fact that he is progressing adds another layer to a game that already carries real weight for the Trojans. If USC can get him back in the mix soon, it would give the front a welcome boost at a time when Oregon already has enough to sort through in a high-profile Big Ten showdown. [Read more 🡒]
USCs Fast Start Faces Its First Real Test Against Oregon
Southern California has spent the early part of the season looking every bit like a team that can make noise in its new conference home, and now it gets a measuring-stick game with No. 20 Oregon coming to town for a Big Ten matchup. Jayden Maiava has been the engine for the Trojans, leading the conference in passing yards and touchdowns, while the rest of the roster has helped USC build the kind of balance that usually travels well into big games.
Oregon brings its own challenge, and then some. Dan Lannings team has already shown it can handle the road in Big Ten play, and the Ducks arrive with enough offensive punch and defensive structure to make this USCs most demanding test yet. For the Trojans, the larger question is not whether they have started fast, but whether that start can hold up when the opponent is ranked, disciplined and comfortable in the kind of game that tends to expose soft spots. [Read more 🡒]
USC Heads To Oregon With New Playmakers And Growing Concerns
USC is heading to Oregon coming off a Week 3 stretch that clarified a few things about the roster and raised a few more questions. On offense, King Miller and Kayden Dixon-Wyatt have started to look like real pieces for the Trojans, giving the unit some much-needed fresh production as the season starts to settle in.
Jayden Maiavas play has slipped, and Waymond Jordans role has shrunk at the same time, leaving USC to sort out what the attack is supposed to look like in a tougher environment. The defense has its own issues to clean up, too, with the run front and the secondary both showing the kind of inconsistency that could become a problem quickly on the road in Eugene. [Read more 🡒]