WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL: NO. 1 USC ROLLS INTO REGIONALS USC 3, TEXAS A&M 0.

Byline: Ramona Shelburne  Staff Writer

About the only thing that went wrong for the No. 1 USC women's volleyball team Saturday night was when it heard the news it would not host next weekend's NCAA Regionals, which were awarded to No. 8 seed UC Santa Barbara.

After surviving a mild challenge from San Diego on Friday night, USC (27-1) breezed past Texas A&M (21-10) 30-18, 30-21, 30-23 in little more than an hour to advance to the third round of the NCAA women's volleyball tournament. USC will play the winner of today's second-round match between Michigan State and Notre Dame on Thursday in Santa Barbara.

``I thought we came out really aggressively tonight, almost like we had nothing to lose even though were the top seed and we have everything to lose. That's just the way it felt, though,'' said junior outside hitter April Ross, who had 12 kills to tie with teammate Keao Burdine for game-high honors. ``People just went out and made some amazing plays. It was definitely a lot of fun out there tonight.''

USC, which has not dropped a game since a five-game loss to Stanford on Nov. 2, looked so comfortable against the considerably taller Aggies that the match turned into a showcase of the Trojans' considerable offensive weaponry.

``I thought we just had too many guns for them tonight,'' USC coach Mick Haley said. ``We had a good even match going with them for a while, but we kind of overpowered them on a couple of rotations.''

With 6-foot-5 middle blockers Emily Adams and Bibiana Candelas clogging up the middle on the block and five dangerous outside hitters, USC never was challenged in the match. Add setters Toni Anderson and Tracy Lindquist, who finished with 20 and 18 assists, respectively, and A&M's defense struggled to defend the numerous openings on its side of the court.

But as good as USC was on offense, Texas A&M coach Laurie Corbelli was even more impressed with their defense.

``I think USC's defense is probably the best I've seen this year especially for their size,'' Corbelli said. ``Just about everything we attacked they had people exactly in the spots they needed to be in.''

Junior Katie Olsovsky opened the match with a hard kill down the line as USC jumped out to an early 5-0 lead. Texas A&M evened the game at seven, but USC pulled away behind the blocking of Emily Adams and Olsovsky to take the first game.

The second game was much of the same. Burdine smashed six kills and senior Lauren Killian finished off three more as USC won six of the final eight points.

In the final game, Ross earned match point with a kill that ricocheted so hard off the arms of A&M's Rebecca Wynalda, it bounced up and hit her in the face. Adams then roofed A.D Achilefu's spike to end the match.

Although USC is the top seed in the 64-team tournament, they were not chosen to host next week's regionals because the Lyon Center's capacity is only 1,304.