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After blowing an early four-goal lead, the Rainbow Wahine water polo team scored three goals in a row late to pull off an 8-7 victory over Cal on Friday in the quarterfinals of the National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis.
Seeded fourth, Hawaii (22-4) scored the game’s first four goals — each by a different player — before the Golden Bears (19-6) got on the board nearly nine minutes into the game. Cal would tack on two more goals before UH’s Alia Burlock ended the Bears’ run with her second goal of the game, with 3:19 to go to intermission.
The Rainbow Wahine led 5-3 at halftime, but Cal outscored UH 3-0 in the third quarter to take a 6-5 lead entering the fourth. Then, in a span of just over three minutes, Hawaii’s Jordan Wedderburn, Ema Verdoux and Bernadette Doyle each scored their second goals of the game to put the Wahine ahead 8-6.
Miriam Bogachenko scored for Cal with nine seconds left to narrow the deficit, but UH held on to advance to a semifinal matchup against No. 1 seed Stanford. This is the Rainbow Wahine’s second consecutive year in the national semifinals.
Goalie Daisy Logtens made 12 saves for UH.
“We’ve talked about resiliency and being able to fight back through that fourth quarter and make stop after stop, just really, really proud of that result,” first-year UH head coach James Robinson said in a school release.
Today’s semifinal is set for 6 a.m. and will be streamed on NCAA.com. The Cardinal reached the semis with a 28-6 win over Wagner. Hawaii and Stanford met on Jan. 18 this season in the Fresno State Polopalooza, a 12-7 win for the Cardinal.
Friday’s win avenged a season-ending loss to the Bears last year in Cal’s home pool. Now the Wahine will have a chance to avenge a loss they suffered on the season’s opening weekend.