COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Trojans’ Kids Are All Right : USC: Freshmen Bastianelli and Cusano make big contributions against Cougars.

They are babes in the woods, fuzzy-faced boys among the men who have made USC’s football team 6-0 and ranked fifth in the country. Their names are Mike Bastianelli and Mark Cusano, age 19, and they are there mostly to mop up after the big guys.

But Saturday, in the Trojans’ 26-14 victory over Washington State, before 51,131 in the Coliseum, the young got restless. Bastianelli and Cusano, both only months out of high school and still a bit in awe of being involved in a program that seems headed toward a shot at a national championship, had a day in which the kids counted.

In fact, without them, USC might have been facing a dramatic finish, rather than a routine cruise past the overmatched Cougars.

Early in the second quarter, with USC’s lead only 3-0, Bastianelli did what he says he is there to do. “I just scrap,” he said.

Teammate Larry Parker fielded a punt and headed down the right sideline. Some 63 yards later, he was flying into the end zone when he was hit and the ball popped loose. But scrambling after him was Bastianelli, who beat a Cougar to the loose ball, pounced on it and scored the first touchdown of his college career.

“I owe it all to Larry Parker,” Bastianelli said. “He did all the work.”

On the next USC series, the 185-pound Bastianelli was right there again, in the game at wide receiver because Parker was still feeling a bit ill after the hit he took on his punt return. On third and 12 at the Washington State 22, Bastianelli cut over the middle and took a perfect pass from the man he calls “the Gun,” Kyle Wachholtz, for a 15-yard gain. It was his first reception as a Trojan and, two plays later, USC had a 17-0 lead.

Later in the game, it was Cusano’s turn.

The 215-pound linebacker, patrolling the middle of USC’s prevent defense in the fourth quarter as Cougar quarterback Chad Davis threw everything at the Trojans but his chin strap, took away Washington State’s last real chance to win. With just under eight minutes left and the score 26-14, Davis faced fourth and five from the USC 48. His intended target was tight end Eric Moore, and the pattern was set up with just enough yardage for the first down to keep the Cougars alive. But the ball never quite made it to Moore’s hands, being batted away inches short of its target by Cusano.

“Mike Phillips [senior safety Micah Phillips] told me to watch the guy coming over the middle,” Cusano said, “so I did.”

After that, the game was pretty much garbage time, leaving Bastianelli and Cusano to count their blessings and to also count their personal winning streaks. Bastianelli’s is at 53 games, Cusano’s at 16.

Bastianelli was a high school All-American quarterback at De La Salle in Concord, Calif., where his team went 13-0 last fall and was ranked No. 1 in the country by ESPN. Bastianelli won every high school game he’d played in, a total of 47.

“My streak now, with us 6-0 here, is 53-0,” he said. “People keep asking me about that, and I guess everybody has to lose eventually. But I have one question about that: Why?”

Cusano, an All-American at Colony, Tex., played on an undefeated team his senior year, so his 10-0 added to the Trojans’ record gives him a 16-0 streak. But as impressive as that is, Cusano is fully aware of Bastianelli’s unbelievable winning string.

“He’s like our good-luck charm,” Cusano said. “It seems like every time he’s out there, something good happens.”

Bastianelli figures that merely being at USC, and being involved in this year’s powerhouse, is something very good.

“I really didn’t know how much I’d play this year,” he said. “I really didn’t know where I’d play. I pretty much knew they weren’t looking for an option quarterback, but I took the scholarship, came in on August 13, and they had me as a wide receiver.

“And that’s fine, because I just love being here. Everywhere else I went on recruiting trips, they were talking about winning. Here, they were talking about winning national championships.”

With the kind of help the Trojans got Saturday from their kiddie corps, that national championship stuff may be more than merely loose talk.