Cardinal's defense dams up Beavers' offense

Lexie Hull blocks a shot by OSU's Destiny Slocum. (Photo by Cody Glenn, Associated Press)

Although Oregon State is known as a sharpshooting team, especially from beyond the arc, stifling defense by the Stanford women’s basketball team effectively altered that scenario in its 61-44 victory at home on Feb. 8.

OSU came into the game with a 43 percent success rate on threes, but Stanford held it to 19 percent on four of 21. In the meantime, Stanford tallied 29 percent on its threes, or nine of 31.

The team’s leading scorer for the game, sophomore guard Kiana Williams, scored 12 of her 18 points on threes.

Freshman forward Lacie Hull chipped in three on her way to nine points while senior forward Alanna Smith (17 points) and sophomore forward Alyssa Jerome (five points) had one each.

Although head coach Tara VanDerveer stuck with the same starters --- Alanna, Kiana, Lacie, sophomore forward Maya Dodson and junior guard DiJonai Carrington --- she gave the opening tip assignment to Maya rather than Alanna.

Slow start but better finish in first quarter

The team started slowly as OSU jumped to a 6-0 lead. DiJonai broke the ice with a basket (her only points of the game) after about three minutes.

After a jumper by Kiana, Alanna scored against a 6’8” defender under the basket to knot the score at 6-6. Stanford went on to take its first lead less than a minute later and ended the first quarter up 12-8.

The margin widened to 36-20 at the half and 50-29 in the next quarter. OSU outscored Stanford 15-11 in the fourth quarter, when bench players had taken over by the final buzzer, but the effort was for naught.

Upset extends home winning streak

Thus Stanford, ranked No. 11 in the latest Associated Press poll, knocked off No. 7, extended its home court winning streak to 22 and handed Tara her 903^rd win on the Farm.

In addition to outscoring the Beavers, the Cardinal forced 13 turnovers while committing seven, had seven blocks to OSU’s none, and had nine assists to OSU’s four.

Maya with four and Alanna with three led the block party. Kiana had four of the assists. 

Reaching a career high, Maya also had 10 of the team’s 43 rebounds (OSU had 42). Alanna and Alyssa had seven each.

Misses, fouls are negatives

On the negative side, Stanford missed some seemingly easy shots under the basket. It also was whistled for 17 fouls, OSU for 10.

Several of the refs’ calls against the home team drew prolonged boos from the crowd of 2,840. (It included some fans in orange near the OSU bench.)

Stanford fans have little time to bask in the win. AP’s No. 3 team, Oregon, comes calling at 1 p.m. Feb. 10 after pulverizing Cal 105-82 at Cal two hours after the Stanford-OSU game. ESPN will televise the game.