Cameron, with Lexie and Anna, leaps over Aari McDonald after the final buzzer. (Getty Images)
It took two down-to-the-wire games, but the Stanford women’s basketball team has won the NCAA women’s national championship, the program’s third ever and its first since 1992.
First, Stanford defeated South Carolina 66-65 in the
semi-final game on April 2.
Next the No. 1 overall seed eked out another
one-point win and the championship by defeating No. 3 seed Arizona 54-53 in
front of more than 4,600 people in San Antonio’s Alamodome on April 4.
In both games, the opponents tried game-winning shots, but they didn’t succeed.
In the Arizona game, Aari McDonald, the Wildcats’
leading scorer, had the ball and a chance to go ahead with only 6.1 seconds
left.
Swarming
defense saves the game in the final seconds
However, swarmed by fifth-year guard Anna Wilson,
junior guard Lexie Hull and freshman forward Cameron Brink, she couldn’t get a
clear shot and missed the basket, sending the Cardinal players into ecstasy.
As head coach Tara VanDerveer said right after the
game, “It wasn’t a pretty game, but it was a gritty game.”
Even though she had to sit out the second quarter
with two fouls, sophomore guard Haley Jones returned in the third quarter and
helped to lead the team with 17 points. Cameron and Lexie (who also had 10
rebounds) were in double figures with 10 each.
Stanford had an eight-point lead, 16-8, after the
first quarter, but Arizona outscored the Cardinal by seven points through the
rest of the game – just one point shy of
what was needed.
The team committed 21 turnovers, while Arizona had
six, a major factor in the tight game.
Arizona had six treys, while Stanford had four: one
each by Lexie, Anna, senior guard Kiana Williams and sophomore forward Ashten
Prechtel. Thus Stanford raised its three-point tournament record to 59.
Most
numbers favor Stanford
On the other hand, Stanford had the advantage in
rebounds, 47-29; assists, 15-6; points in the paint, 36-20; and blocks, 5-2.
Cameron had three of them.
Writing in the April 5 SF Chronicle, columnist Scott
Ostler reported that for the season, Stanford had more assists than its
opponents, 543-296, and more blocks, 196-84, with 88 by Cameron.
The Chronicle’s Steve Kroner wrote, "No team has
shot better than 41.8 percent against Stanford all season."
Arizona shot 28.8 percent in this game, Stanford
42.1 percent. In the earlier South Carolina game, Stanford shot 41.7 percent,
South Carolina 35.8 percent.
Thus the team completed its season with a 31-2
record, and Tara racked up the women’s record high 1,125 career wins.
Tara completes the net cutting. (CNN)
After the game, the players received the national
championship trophy, T-shirts and hats before cutting down the nets.
Haley and others cheer as dejected Arizona players leave the court. (Getty Images)
They also learned that Haley had been named the
tournament’s most outstanding player. Lexie was named to the all-tournament
team, giving the Cardinal two of its five players.
Ashten jumps for joy after the squeaker over South Carolina. (Getty Images)
Team
squeezes past South Carolina
In the earlier game, which also came down to the very
last seconds, Stanford defeated South Carolina 66-65 on April 2 to advance to
the championship game.
The team might have had to pack up and head home if
the Gamecocks hadn’t missed two chances to score the winning basket at the end.
In those frantic last seconds, Stanford lost the
ball, giving S. Carolina those two chances. After the second miss, Cameron
grabbed the ball, thus safeguarding the win.
Haley, who led the team with 24 points, bookended
the game, scoring both the first basket and the last, which proved to be the
game winner.
Lexie corrals the ball in the South Carolina game. (Getty Images)
Lexie was the only other Cardinal in double figures,
scoring 18 points to go with 13 rebounds for a double-double.
Also scoring were Ashten with nine, Kiana with
eight, Cameron with six and junior guard Lacie Hull with one.
The game didn’t start well with two turnovers and a
foul, which gave the Gamecocks two points in the first minute. They followed up
with a 3-pointer, putting Stanford in a five-point hole.
First
quarter starts rough, ends with tie
Stanford started scoring, but still was down nine
points about halfway through the first quarter. However, thanks to a 9-0
Stanford run, the score was tied 15-15 to end the quarter.
In the meantime, Haley picked up her second foul,
forcing her to sit out the rest of that quarter and all of the second before
returning for the rest of the game.
Stanford notched its first lead, 17-15, early in
the second quarter and expanded it to 31-25 at the half.
The third quarter ended 52-49 before the game ended
with the one-point advantage.
Team
sets records, earns honors
The Cardinal’s five 3’s meant it had set the record
for most 3’s, 55, in the NCAA women’s tournament.
In this game, Haley and Lexie had two each. Ashten
added the other.
Cameron, with 88 blocks this year, broke the
single-season record set by Jayne Appel, ’10, in the 2007-08 season.
Tara received two more honors. She was named the
Naismith Women’s coach of the year and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association coach of the year.
Kiana was named a second team All-American, and
Haley received honorable mention.
Kate and Tara, with the trophy, lead the parade. (Stanford Athletics)
Campus
parade honors the champs
Returning to campus April 5, the masked team and
staff were greeted by hundreds of cheering fans as they paraded around campus
in convertibles led by three motorcycle officers and several police vehicles
and trailed by a fire engine, its siren blaring. Helicopters circled overhead.
Tara and associate head coach Kate Paye were in the
first car holding the trophy. The other coaches and staff were in the next
vehicles, and the players were in groups of two or three in the next ones.
Among the spectators was sophomore forward Fran
Belibi’s mom, who had just returned from San Antonio, as well as several other
fans who had been there.
Haley waves to cheering fans along the parade route. (Stanford Athletics)
Sporting Stanford apparel, people brought their kids
and dogs. Stanford staffers handed out red pompons and Stanford signs.
Someone with a boom box played upbeat music,
included a recording of the band playing “All Right Now.”
The parade was originally supposed to stay on
campus, but it ventured into downtown Palo Alto, too.
When it disbanded in the Maples parking lot, the
team and staff climbed aboard a hook-and-ladder truck to pose for photos with
the trophy and a Stanford banner.
Then they walked into the back entrance of Maples to
end the festivities.
