The first time these two teams met, the Bruins’ start did them in, putting them down 6-3 going into the second half.

This time, the Bruins fell behind the Cardinal in the final quarter.

“That part was a positive, where we didn’t have to come from behind or put ourselves at a deficit. But we have to find a way to finish a game, and we have to find a mentality,” said interim co-head coach Jason Falitz. “Quite frankly, we need to learn how to win.”

No. 2 UCLA women’s water polo (12-2, 2-1 MPSF) fell 10-9 to No. 1 Stanford (9-0, 3-0) after a back-and-forth battle Saturday at Spieker Aquatics Center. The top two teams in the country were deadlocked 6-6 at the end of the first half and 8-8 heading into the fourth quarter – where the game got away from the Bruins.

“Our approach in the last quarter on the goal was completely different than the first three quarters,” Falitz said.

The Cardinal scored first at the start of the game, but the Bruins leveled the game in the first quarter. The Cardinal developed their largest lead of the game – ahead 5-3 – but a goal from senior utility Lily Gess and two from senior center Bia Mantellato pushed the Bruins to six goals by the end of the half.

Gess had two goals in the game, both from the left side of the Bruins’ offense. On both, Falitz said Stanford was yelling for its defense to stay off her, and she hit both shots.

“They’re a very explosive team, and we knew that going in they will jump and try to mess with you,” Gess said. “My teammates remained calm under pressure and made that extra pass to me, which set me up for my shot.”

Mantellato’s two goals came within 40 seconds of each other, with her rising out of the water at center to redirect a pass into the net on one.

The Bruins’ energy continued in the third quarter, where they picked up their first lead of the game with a goal from senior attacker Taylor Smith.

Junior attacker Elektra Urbatsch scored UCLA’s second goal of the third quarter after Falitz yelled to her to “step up.”

But in the fourth quarter, things changed for the Bruins.

They stopped setting the pace and started rushing, Smith said.

“The pace was more in their control. We did a really good job at starting at our pace in the first three quarters, and then it switched at the end there,” Smith said. “We just need to use the whole clock, open up our eyes and see the whole pool and break them down – pass by pass and setting each other up.”

UCLA scored one goal to Stanford’s two. While the Cardinal buried a 5-meter penalty shot in the fourth quarter, the Bruins missed one.

The game ended without a final shot opportunity for the Bruins, after the officials called an exclusion on senior utility Genoa Rossi with 27 seconds left in the game. The Cardinal played keep away for the final seconds.

“I never like to get into calls, and that’s a big call. I’m going to have to watch that on video. But we have a timeout, we’re still in a great position. There’s three seconds left, and there’s an exclusion called, away from the ball at a random position,” Falitz said. “Once that happened, they can run the game out. We purposely tried to take a penalty. They decided to keep the ball instead and run the clock out.”

Despite the ending, Falitz said he wants his team to keep their heads up. Just as they learned from their first match against the Cardinal, the Bruins will learn from this.

The teams are likely to face off again at both the MPSF tournament and the NCAA tournament come April.

“We never let them slip away. I thought we played a really good team game, and we kept pushing – and now we have a lot to learn from that game. We can go back and watch that film and get better from it,” Smith said. “This isn’t the end of the season. There’s still time, and I have a lot of confidence in us the next time we play them.”