The midday Palo Alto, Calif. sun beat down on the weary faces of the No. 12 Michigan women’s water polo team. A weekend that was supposed to be half-vacation and half-homecoming had soured with the regret of missed opportunities.

Michigan coach Matt Anderson gathered up his team before their seventh-place consolation match against UC-Davis on Sunday — their final game at the Stanford Invitational — and made sure they knew one thing: The tournament wasn’t over yet.

“It was definitely a gut-check game,” Anderson said. “I told them that this game would define our mental makeup for the rest of the season.”

The 14th-ranked Aggies scored to take the lead late in the second period — “hit us in the mouth,” according to Anderson — before the Wolverines finally responded. Behind six saves from senior goalkeeper Tara Brigham, Michigan held UC-Davis scoreless for the next 17 minutes of the match.

When the Aggies finally scored again deep into the fourth period, the outcome of the game, a 7-5 Michigan win, was no longer in doubt.

The victory provided a nice bookend to a long weekend of matches against some of the nation’s top competition. The eight-team Stanford Invitational included six teams ranked in the top-10 nationally, forcing the Wolverines to go into the weekend with an underdog mentality.

“Our goal was to have a chance to upset a higher-ranked team,” Anderson said. “We were thinking we had a chance to go 2-2.”

The Wolverines’ best chances at the coveted upset both came on Saturday, the first day of the Invitational. Against No. 2 California, Michigan utilized efficient power plays and a hat trick by All-American junior attacker Kiki Golden to fight to a third-period lead.

Anderson noted that junior Lauren Colton did well, drawing the majority of the penalties that Michigan capitalized on in the match. Colton was coming off of a remarkable five-goal performance in a non-tournament game against Santa Clara on Friday.

“We call her our ‘Cobra’ here because she has those quick-strike capabilities,” Anderson joked.

The lead was slim and short-lived, as California pulled away in the final period for a 9-7 victory. Still, the Wolverines were pleased with how they played against premier competition.

Their next game proved more frustrating. Facing the 10th-ranked Hawaii, Michigan again took an early lead, but the Rainbow Warriors responded with three goals in the third period.

After missing several usually simple penalty shots, the Wolverines were left ruing what could have been after a 7-5 defeat. Anderson admitted that he was a bit surprised that they missed so many penalty shots.

“All last year, Lauren Colton didn’t miss any penalty shots, and yet her first two of the year were saved,” Anderson said. “The Hawaii goalie made some nice saves.”

Michigan’s final group-stage game was a Sunday morning rematch against undefeated No. 4 UCLA, a team the Wolverines beat two weeks earlier in Ann Arbor. Though the first half was once again a close affair, the Bruins, led by a smothering defense, finally pulled away in the second half to win by a comfortable 10-3 margin.

“They have the best goalie in the nation,” Anderson said. “They held (California) to three goals, they held Hawaii to five goals, and they held us to three goals. That’s pretty impressive.”

The three-game losing streak left Michigan to compete in the final game of the weekend against UC-Davis. Playing with only 90 minutes of rest, Anderson urged his team to dig deep.

“We very easily could have folded our tents,” he said. “We knew we were tired. We knew we had had a couple tough losses. But this was a game we should win, and a game we needed to win.”

And win they did.

Michigan has three weeks off before participating in the Anteater Invitational in Irvine, Calif. on Feb. 25-26.