This post was updated Sept. 21 at 9:11 p.m.

The score is 10-10.

Attacker Ryder Dodd swings the ball to his teammate on the left side of the pool, whose last-second shot finds the back of the net.

UCLA wins.

Those three lines could be describing the final moments of the Bruins’ 2025 NCAA championship win over USC or their 2026 victory over Stanford to take home the Overnght MPSF Invitational title for the fourth straight year.

This time around, it was the latter.

No. 1 UCLA men’s water polo (12-0) prevailed over tournament host No. 3 Stanford (8-1) 11-10 Sunday afternoon at Avery Aquatic Center after freshman utility Luka Gladović netted the game-winning score with one second left on the clock. UCLA advanced to the final match of the invitational following a 23-4 domination of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (1-9) Friday afternoon before back-to-back wins on Saturday, besting No. 9 UC San Diego (9-3) 16-8 in the morning and taking down No. 4 California (8-2) 11-10 later that afternoon.

It was attacker Frederico Jucá Carsalade who received Dodd’s pass and sent the shot that secured the championship for the Bruins in December, but the fifth-year student did not see action in Sunday’s match against the Cardinal. Luckily, Gladović was in the same spot Carsalade was and delivered with the same result.

With the score knotted up and seven seconds remaining in the match, coach Adam Wright sent a seven-man attack toward the Stanford goal, with Dodd donning the goalie cap.

“We work that in training,” Wright said about the squad’s formation for the final play. “It’s just a read. Tico (Carsalade) is usually in that position, and he’s not here, so Luka happened to be in that position. The guys did a great job executing, and Luka finished.”

Gladović has seemingly found his stride in his first season with the blue and gold, scoring in each of the squad’s four games throughout the tournament for a total of nine scores across the weekend.

A member of the Serbian senior national team at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships, Gladović ranks second on the team in total goals, averaging 1.75 per game.

The Cardinal seemed to respond to every punch the Bruins threw, opening the second frame strong by taking an early 4-3 lead before junior attacker Bode Brinkema’s equalizer.

UCLA held Stanford to just one score in the third stanza to take a two-point lead into the final frame, but a back-and-forth quarter fueled by a heavy Cardinal press and a late goal from attacker Daniel Mnatsakanian tied the score at 10.

Yet it was a save from senior goalkeeper Nate Tauscher – who finished the outing with 11 – that set up the game-winning possession and ended the match with an 11-10 tally.

“It was definitely a tough turnaround, but we did a good job adjusting to each style of play,” said senior attacker Wade Sherlock after the four-game, three-day invite. “We knew Stanford was going to come out and press us super hard, so we did a good job of getting our movement going on the perimeter. That ultimately led us to be in a good position towards the end of the game.”

The Bruins had already conquered a three-game slate across Friday and Saturday before the title match, and the difference between the beginning and end of the invite was like night and day.

UCLA’s 19-point defeat of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the opening round was its largest margin of victory so far this season, with the Bruins tallying 11 unanswered goals before the Stags got into the scoring column for the first time. Fourteen different Bruins scored in the match – the most since that same mark was reached when the squad poured 36 goals onto Penn State Behrend in the first round of the 2025 MPSF tournament.

Wright’s squad continued to display its defensive tenacity in Saturday’s first outing against the Tritons – who were held to just eight goals. Gladović tallied a first-half hat trick to put the Bruins up 9-3 at the break – a lead that would never fall below five in the second half.

“We stick to our standard, and we don’t change anything,” Brinkema said. “We treat every game the same. It’s about hitting our standard and focusing on ourselves, rather than the other team or the outcome or the total goals.”

The Bruins’ semifinal match against Cal was the most competitive outing before the title game, as a third-quarter surge by the Golden Bears narrowed UCLA’s 8-3 halftime lead.

Cal converted on four of nine power play opportunities and on its lone penalty – one of a pair of goals from attacker Beso Akhvlediani that brought the Golden Bears within one with 1:07 left on the clock.

It was the defense that once again held firm, though, and Tauscher’s save on another shot from Akhvlediani ultimately sealed the Bruins’ ticket to the final match.

Wright said last week that his group needed to make some strides to reach the point they needed to be at for the weekend’s slate, and it seems they did just that.

“For me, what’s been going right is that we’ve had really good communication and everyone has been buying into our defense,” Sherlock said. “We have a quick week ahead, but we’re a very hungry group, and we’re not satisfied with anything.”