A year later, the sting lingers.

So the Hawaii water polo team needs little reminding that a historic regular season won’t matter come tournament time.

The Rainbow Wahine (20-4 overall) went 5-0 in Big West play this spring — winning by an average of six goals per game — to capture the program’s first outright regular-season title and the top seed in this weekend’s conference tournament in Irvine, Calif.

They’re on pace to break a program scoring record and have held the fifth spot in the national poll for the past 12 weeks.

But a loss close to 52 weeks ago has kept the team’s collective focus from wandering beyond the next match.

UH went into last year’s BWC tournament semifinals as the second seed and had a bye before facing Long Beach State, a team the Wahine defeated by five goals in the regular season. They climbed out of the pool with an 8-7 overtime loss, their NCAA tournament hopes doused.

“We were too confident and I think that’s what killed us,” UH junior Irene Gonzalez said. “Now we’re approaching it in a different way. Anything can happen. Other teams are going to go hard. Maybe we beat them in the regular season, but you cannot compare that game with the one on Saturday because it’s going to be totally different.”

A year later, UH again faces Long Beach State (12-13, 2-3) in a semifinal match today at 10 a.m. at UC Irvine’s Anteater Aquatic Complex. The fourth-seeded 49ers advanced with a 9-6 win over fifth seed UC Santa Barbara in the first round on Friday. UH won their regular-season meeting 12-6 on senior night at the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex on April 7.

“(Last year’s semifinal) was a frustrating game in a lot of different ways, and everything is a growing experience,” said UH coach Maureen Cole, who led the Wahine to Big West titles in 2013 and ’15. “I think the individuals that went through that learned a lot and are different because of it and it’s part of the process. It has only helped us this year.”

Second-seeded UC Davis (18-10, 3-2) faces third seed and defending champion UC Irvine (12-13, 3-2) in today’s second semifinal. The championship match is set for 11 a.m. Sunday.

The tournament champion earns the Big West’s automatic berth into the eight-team NCAA tournament set for May 11-13 in Los Angeles. Three at-large berths are available, but Cole expects those spots to be divided among the MPSF powers ahead of UH in the poll — No. 1 USC, No. 2 Stanford, No. 3 California and No. 4 UCLA.

“Maybe in some weird way we could get it,” Cole said. “But I don’t want to rely on that and I don’t anticipate getting it.”

UH’s average of 11.75 goals per game is ahead of the school record of 10.93 set in 2008. Gonzalez enters the tournament second in the Big West in goals scored (49), tied for third in assists (33) and fourth in steals (41).

Senior Chloe Barr ranks second on the team with 44 goals and is part of a senior class that experienced the high of winning the Big West tournament at home in 2015 as well as falling short the past two years.

“We’ve been in a lot of different situations … It helps me understand the craziness that is to come,” Barr said.

“We’ve done most of the hard work already. Now it’s time to execute.”