Over a beautiful couple of days over the weekend, Stanford’s women’s water polo team put together a string of strong efforts to earn third place in the Stanford Invitational Tournament. And while a third place showing in the team’s own tournament might be considered a let-down — especially for a team with serious title aspirations like the No. 3 Cardinal — that was certainly not the case here.

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Junior Kira Hillman scored a hat trick in Stanford’s 10-6 win over Hawai’i in the third-place game at the Stanford Invitational this weekend. In the team’s four games, Hillman finished with five goals, with a pair against Cal to go with the three against the Rainbow Wahine. Stanford’s only loss on the weekend was a battle with No. 2 USC which the Trojans won by just one goal. #gallery http://daily.stanford.org/image/full/8527
Alex Oppenheimer

Junior Kira Hillman scored a hat trick in Stanford’s 10-6 win over Hawai’i in the third-place game at the Stanford Invitational this weekend. In the team’s four games, Hillman finished with five goals, with a pair against Cal to go with the three against the Rainbow Wahine. Stanford’s only loss on the weekend was a battle with No. 2 USC which the Trojans won by just one goal.

The tournament field included the top five ranked teams in the country, and three other teams ranked No. 13 or higher. The Cardinal finished with a 3-1 record, the only loss coming at the hands of No. 2 USC in a narrow one-goal defeat.

The Cardinal kicked off the tournament Saturday morning against Arizona State. From the beginning, Stanford had no intention of losing to the No. 11 Sun Devils, as the Card jumped out to a 4-1 lead at the end of the first quarter, then doubling up its tally to go up 8-1 at the half.

But the team did not let up then, and it continued the assault to seal the 14-4 victory. Sophomore driver Kelly Eaton led the way for the Cardinal, putting in a four-goal performance, while senior driver Jackie Gauthier added three of her own for a hat trick.

While Stanford was able to carry over its strong defensive effort into the afternoon match-up with second-ranked USC, it did not find as much luck on the offensive end.

The game was a defensive struggle, and it showed with a scoreless first period. Both teams managed to break their respective droughts in the second period, although USC netted three times (all on long shots) to Stanford’s one, a penalty conversion by junior driver Lauren Silver.

The game stayed low-scoring — the score heading into the final minute of the game was 5-3 in favor of USC. However, the Cardinal would not give up.

Eaton scored a goal with 38 seconds left to make it 5-4, and the Stanford defense shut down the Trojans to regain possession with three seconds left. Silver got the ball and fired a difficult long shot that went off the post as time expired, leaving the Cardinal’s comeback attempt agonizingly short.

However hard to take as the USC loss may have been, Stanford was ready to bounce back for Sunday morning’s game against its archrival, No. 5 Cal. While each team scored two goals apiece in the first, third and fourth periods, the Cardinal used the second period to take control of the game — it ended up shutting out Cal 5-0 in that period, sending the team on its way to an 11-6 victory.

Stanford did a great job taking advantage of penalties in its match with the Golden Bears — six of their goals were scored in extra-attacker situations, and Silver also converted two more five-meter shots. She ended the game with four goals, while Gauthier, and junior drivers Kira Hillman and Koree Blyleven added a pair each. Freshman Amber Oland continued her fine run in goal, making 12 saves.

The Cardinal’s 2-1 record in the round-robin stage meant that it would play in the third place game against Hawai’i, a team fittingly ranked No. 4 in the nation. Hawai’i started off strong, but by the end of an exciting first half, Stanford had knotted the score up at 6-6.

Stanford then used a third-quarter run to put the game away, scoring three times in the period and adding another in the fourth for a final score of 10-6. This time, Hillman led the charge with three goals, and Eaton, Gauthier and Silver each chipped in two.

“Our team, in general, has positive thoughts about this weekend,” Hillman said afterwards. “We took the loss to be a stepping stone, showed progress on the second day and finished strong.”

If the Cardinal can turn that strong finish into momentum for the rest of the season, Stanford will be very difficult to beat, no matter who the team plays.