After taking a Halloween trip to the Bay Area, the Bruins were left spooked.

No. 1 UCLA men’s water polo (17-3, 2-3 MPSF) suffered its first pair of back-to-back losses since 2023, falling 12-14 to No. 3 California (14-4, 3-2) on Saturday at Spieker Aquatics Complex before being bested 8-11 by No. 2 Stanford (17-2, 4-1) on Sunday at Avery Aquatic Center.

Riding a six-point victory over then-No. 3 USC into a two-week break from match action, the Bruins seemed poised to come out the gates firing in their return to conference play. However, the pair of Northern California opponents brought overwhelming energy on both ends of the pool.

“The reality is, I thought we’d have a different result this weekend,” said coach Adam Wright. “But at the same time, we put in a lot of good work that will serve us well for the back end of the year.”

The Westwood side only saw a glimpse of a lead in the first matchup against the Golden Bears, with junior attacker Ryder Dodd putting the Bruins up 1-0 just 46 seconds in. A common theme that persisted throughout the weekend was defensive intensity limiting offensive opportunities, and neither team would find the back of the net again until Cal defender Maddox Arlett scored with 4:02 remaining in the first stanza.

From that point on, the Bruins would never see another lead.

Cal went up by three scores on three separate occasions in the second frame, but a last-second counterattack from fifth-year attacker Frederico Jucá Carsalade kept the Bruins within two at the break.

The Golden Bears scored three of the first four goals to open the second half, jumping out to a quick 9-5 advantage. Cal attacker Beso Akhvlediani – who registered a hat trick alongside Arlett – tallied a score with 1:54 remaining in the third frame to give the Golden Bears a 10-7 lead after three that the Bruins could not climb back from in the fourth.

“This weekend, we learned that we need to start taking games possession by possession,” said senior defender Max Matthews. “We need to double down our focus on defense and stay true to what’s enabled us to be successful in the past.”

Fifth-year goalkeeper Griffen Price manned the cage in both matches, facing off against his former squad in Stanford on Sunday.

After tallying 11 saves against the Golden Bears, Price added 11 against the Cardinal in what was another low-scoring outing. After Stanford attacker Dimitris Chatzis put his side up 5-4 with 4:46 remaining in the first half, both teams would be held scoreless until the break.

The Cardinal tallied three straight goals to open the second half and take a game-high four-score lead, but the Bruins showed fight. Matthews converted on a power play opportunity before the blue and gold found a pair of scores from senior utility Ben Liechty and junior attacker Bode Brinkema, making the tally 8-7 heading into the fourth.

Neither team scored until over five minutes into the frame, when Cardinal attacker Botond Balogh completed his hat trick. Balogh finished the afternoon second in scoring between both squads, only trailing Stanford driver Ben Forer’s four goals.

While Liechty managed to get the Bruins on the board in the fourth, that would be their final score of the bout.

“Moving forward, we need to take a look in the mirror,” said fifth-year utility Ben Larsen. “We let these games slip away from us, but there’s a lot to take away and we can definitely learn from what happened.”

Liechty paced the Bruins with four goals across the weekend, followed by three each from Dodd, Larsen and Carsalade. Ultimately, though, UCLA was unable to create enough scoring opportunities to erase its deficits and failed to capitalize on the fast break.

Wright’s squad converted on just four of its 18 power plays across the pair of matches and didn’t take a single penalty shot. The Bruins posted a lower shooting clip than both opponents, with a mark of 36.4% against Cal and 23.5% against Stanford.

After an unprecedented weekend, the blue and gold will look to bounce back on Saturday afternoon, when they will host No. 7 UC San Diego at Spieker Aquatics Center.

“We have the best four teams in the country in our conference, and it’s a great thing that we get to play them so many times,” Wright said. “But at the same time, there’s so much that can happen between now and the conference tournament, so the only thing we can focus on is ourselves because there are a lot of things we have to clean up.”