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Ruef pulls double duty for a career first in Cardinal win  

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By Rick Eymer
Palo Alto Online Sports

Mikaela Ruef made a concerted effort to get the final two rebounds that would assure her of her first career double-double.

"At first I didn't know I had a double-double," Ruef said. "When I came off the floor somebody told me I needed two rebounds for it. When I went back out I worked to get those rebounds."

Ruef scored a career-high 11 points and had 10 rebounds as the fourth-ranked Stanford women's basketball team downed visiting Arizona, 73-43, in a Pac-12 Conference contest Friday night.

The Cardinal (10-1, 21-2) hosts Arizona State on Sunday at 2 p.m. in a game to be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.

"It's weird because I thought I would never score 11 points in a game," Ruef said. "That's way too much."

Ruef needed just six shots, making five, to record her first ever double figure game in scoring. Her career high in rebounds is 13.

Ruef took the words of Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer to heart. VanDerveer kept telling Ruef to shoot, shoot, shoot.

"As of late we needed more people to score to take the pressure off Chiney," Ruef said. "Tara told me to try and score. I was making an effort to do that. Normally it's not my job to score."

Chiney Ogwumike did her part as well, recording 18 points and 12 rebounds for her seventh straight double-double and 17th of the season.

"I think when you play with Chiney, see makes it look so easy," VanDerveer said. "Others need to assert themselves more. Mikaela got in deep and scored on them."

Stanford played without Toni Kokenis, who was held out as a precaution due to an undisclosed illness. It's the second game she's missed due to not feeling well.

"We missed Toni a lot," VanDerveer said. "That threw us out of whack. We turned it over way too much."

Stanford committed a season-high 19 turnovers, though Arizona was only able to score 11 points as a result. The Cardinal took advantage of 19 Wildcats turnovers for 19 points.

The Cardinal also used its considerable height advantage to outrebound Arizona, 46-28, and outscore them, 8-4, on second chance points.

Stanford entered the game with the Pac-12's leading 24.3 percent 3-point field percentage defense. That mark will be considerably lower after holding Arizona to 1 of 14 from 3-point range.

"I thought we would miss Toni more on defense but I thought Jasmine (Camp) came in and did some good things," VanDerveer said. "That was the most she's played, but she's been good in practice all week."

Stanford won its seventh straight, and beat Arizona for the 22nd consecutive time. The Wildcats haven't Stanford in eight years.

Arizona, the conference's best free throw shooting team, was 10 of 19 from the foul line.

Joslyn Tinkle added 15 points as both her and Ogwumike were 6 of 11 from the floor.

Arizona's Davellyn White, the Pac-12 active career scoring leader with 1,932 points, was limited to six on 1 of 10 shooting. The last time she was held below 10 points was last year's game against Stanford, a span of 31 games.


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