The journey of the Hawaii women’s water polo team and coach Maureen Cole came to an end Saturday.

The fairy tale ending wasn’t meant to be, but Cole was still proud of her squad after what she called a “historic” season.

Hawaii, the No. 2 seed, struggled in the second quarter and couldn’t cash in on power plays, and lost to No. 3 and host California 9-6 in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship in Berkeley, Calif.

“In sports, there’s a winner, there’s a loser,” Cole said. “This is two evenly matched teams. We couldn’t put the ball away very well today. They did, so credit to Cal for doing that.”

It was the final game for Cole, who announced her retirement in November.

The Punahou graduate guided the Rainbow Wahine to five NCAA Championship appearances and a 226-96 overall record in her 13-year tenure. She previously served as a UH assistant for five seasons.

“Game aside, I’m just really proud of the Wahine team this year, this season,” Cole said. “This game in particular it didn’t go the way we wanted it to, but they fought until the end. It’s a testament to the type of people they are, a great group of girls.”

Bernadette Doyle scored three goals, Bia Mantellato Dias had two and Alba Bonamusa Boix finished with one for the Rainbow Wahine, who were outscored 5-1 by the Golden Bears in the second quarter and finished 2-for-17 on power-play opportunities.

“We weren’t putting the ball in, we weren’t getting good looks on the cage,” Cole said of the power-play struggles. “We weren’t stepping in at the right time. We were a little out of sorts.”

Hawaii (23-4) trailed 8-3 at halftime, but got within three goals after Doyle scored with 6:37 remaining in the game.

“I feel very proud to be a part of this team,” Doyle said. “We all worked really hard. We just tried to make Hawaii proud and the university. We didn’t get there in the end, but we were right there and we fought right till the end.”

Hawaii seniors Bonamusa Boix, Lucia Gomez de la Puente, Emma Gurasich and Lot Stertefeld played their final game.

The accomplishments for this year’s edition of the Rainbow Wahine are impressive:

>> The No. 2 seeding for the NCAA Championship was a program best. The Rainbow Wahine were seeded No. 4 on four previous occasions.

>> First national semifinals appearance since 2013.

>> Ranked a program-best No. 2 in the Collegiate Water Polo Association Women’s Varsity Top 25, a spot it has held for a total of 11 weeks.

>> A pair of victories over No. 1 ranked teams: 9-7 over defending national champion Stanford on Jan. 20, and 10-6 over USC on Feb. 4. It was the first victory over the Cardinal in 37 meetings; and the triumph over the Trojans ended a 27-game losing streak in the series. Hawaii beat USC again 9-8 on March 16.

>> Went 7-0 during the Big West regular season to complete their third undefeated run in conference play. Hawaii went 3-0 in the conference tournament.

“For this group, I think it’s historic,” Cole said. “There’s a lot of firsts. The first time we’ve ever beaten Stanford, we beat SC twice. Those are things that will never be taken away from this group. Historic is a word that comes to mind and just really proud of this group.”

Rainbow Wahine associate head coach James Robinson will take over for Cole, the five-time Big West Coach of the Year.

“Coach Robinson is the best that there is,” Cole said. “Hawaii is in phenomenal hands and it’s really why I’m at complete peace walking away. I always want to leave things better than I found it and I think I did that. He’s young, he’s fiery and he’s smart. He’s passionate and he cares a lot about these girls.”

On Saturday, California had two unsuccessful power plays and three shots go off the post in the first three minutes.

The Golden Bears went up 2-0 on Maryn Dempsey’s goal at 4:11 and Claire Rowell’s power-play goal at 2:49.

The Rainbow Wahine cut the deficit to 2-1 on Doyle’s power-play goal at 2:24.

California (19-6) had five shots go off the post in the first quarter.

The Golden Bears went up 3-1 on Dempsey’s goal at 7:10 of the second quarter.

Mantellato Dias scored a power-play goal at 6:36 to get the Rainbow Wahine within 3-2.

California extended the lead to 6-2 on power-play goals by Dempsey at 5:59 and Feline Voordouw at 5:15, and a penalty shot by Julia Bonaguidi at 4:11.

“There were a lot of mystery fouls early,” Cole said. “There were a lot of exclusions, but we had a lot of our girls that had been in the water a lot take some early exclusions for fouls that I did not see. We had a different group of girls in that weren’t used to.”

Hawaii got within 6-3 on Mantellato Dias’ backhand goal at 2:52.

The Golden Bears went up 8-3 on Rozanne Voorvelt’s goal at 1:36 and Julianne Snyder’s power-play goal at 0:57.

Hawaii’s Bonamusa Boix scored at 5:23 of the third to cut the deficit to 8-4. It was the only score for either team in the quarter.

Hawaii’s Doyle scored at 6:37 and California’s Elena Flynn answered at 6:24 to make it 9-5.

Doyle scored at 4:27 to get the Rainbow Wahine again within three.

Mantellato Dias missed a penalty shot for Hawaii at 3:47 and Stertefeld placed a shot off the post on a power play at 2:20.

“We had great opportunities even in the fourth quarter to bring it to a two-goal game with under four minutes left, but the second quarter was a killer,” Cole said.

On Feb. 24, Hawaii beat California 10-7 at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational in Irvine, Calif.

The host Golden Bears beat the Rainbow Wahine 9-8 on March 10.

California will face No. 1 UCLA in an all-Mountain Pacific Sports Federation matchup today for the title at 4 p.m. The Bruins defeated No. 4 Stanford 10-8 in Saturday’s earlier semifinal.