Hawaii-San Diego State has become somewhat of a women's water polo rivalry over the years.

In last season's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament quarterfinal, the fourth-seeded Rainbow Wahine defeated fifth-seeded SDSU, but the Aztecs still received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

In yesterday's Mountain Pacific quarterfinal at the Aztec Aquaplex, the seedings were flipped but the result was the same: Hawaii edged SDSU 10-9.

It was a game the Aztecs and sophomore Danielle Pelke, who had a team-high three goals, wanted “a lot.”

“It was definitely a bummer we lost to them,” Pelke said.

SDSU (27-6) hurt its chance for an at-large bid in the eight-team NCAA Tournament. At best, the Aztecs can nab a fifth-place MPSF finish should they win out – at 11:40 a.m. today against ninth-seeded San Jose State, then tomorrow.

Hawaii (20-8) plays top-seeded UCLA (28-0), also No. 1 in the country, at 2:50 p.m. in one of two semifinals today. The other features second-seeded Stanford (24-3) against third-seeded USC (18-6) at 4:10 p.m.

“The main focus for us is to make sure we understand we still have a tournament to play and we need to come back and win two games to finish as high as we can with where we are now,” said Aztecs coach Carin Crawford. “Last year, we were in a similar situation where we lost to Hawaii in the 4-5 game, but we got to the (NCAA) tournament. I don't think it's a forgone opportunity, but, yes, a win would have helped our case.”

Junior Anna Gonzales' goal with 24 seconds left was the final score for SDSU in a game in which the Aztecs had chances to come back but shot poorly.

Entering with a 37.8 shooting percentage for the year, SDSU was 9-for-33 (27 percent) shooting against Hawaii, which was 10-for-25 (40 percent).

“Gosh, that's a hard loss to take,” Crawford said. “We can't expect to beat a team like Hawaii if we don't shoot the ball well. It really comes down to how we shoot the ball and how we take care of our advantages and opportunities.”

The Rainbow Wahine certainly did. They scored on five of eight power-play opportunities.