Jeanette Pohlen scored 24 points and Nnemkadi Ogwumike added 20 points but the third-ranked Stanford women’s basketball team suffered an 82-72 overtime loss to host Tennessee Sunday night.
Stanford rallied from a 14-point first-half deficit to take a six-point lead with 7:26 left to play. That was just the beginning.
There were three lead changes and four ties in the final three minutes. Pohlen’s 3-pointer with 1:04 left in regulation gave the Cardinal (6-2) a 70-67 edge.
The sixth-ranked Lady Vols (10-2) overwhelmed Stanford in the overtime period as Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer failed to win her 800th career game again.
Tennessee made 8 of 14 from the foul line in overtime while Stanford’s only overtime points came on a pair of free throws by Kayla Pedersen, who finished with 10 points.
“We just needed to lock down on defense, not foul,” Pohlen said. “We needed to keep our hands up, box them out and not let them get second shots.”
Stanford completes its current road trip with a game at USF, coached by former Stanford great Jennifer Azzi, on Wednesday night.
The Cardinal seniors, Pedersen, Pohlen, Ashley Cimino and Hannah Donaghe last experienced a two-game losing streak Jan. 4-6, 2008 in a road trip at UCLA and USC.
Pedersen missed the first game of her career Thursday night at DePaul, ending a streak of 121 straight starts for Stanford after experiencing headaches from hitting her head on the court in the Cardinal’s win over Fresno State a week ago.
Stanford hasn’t lost three in a row since Jan. 6-13, 2001, which included a loss at home and two on the road to Oregon and Oregon State.
The last time Stanford lost two in a row, it responded with a 23-game winning streak that included a victory over Connecticut (the last time the Huskies lost) in the national semifinals in 2008.
Stanford has never lost more than four straight home games under VanDerveer, and that happened once; in her first year on The Farm.
Tennessee took a 26-12 lead with 8:53 left in the first half and the Lady Vols were doing everything right while Pedersen missed her first seven shots and Stanford was generally sloppy.
Tennessee still had a 14-point edge when Pedersen hit her first shot, a 3-pointer with 4:19 remaining that helped Stanford rally to within 39-31 by halftime.
“I thought we got some good looks, and we didn’t knock down shots that we needed to,” VanDerveer said. “When they got good looks, they made shots.”
Stanford used 63 percent shooting in the second half after hitting just 33 percent of its shots in the first as it recovered from a slow start. Pohlen’s 3-pointer tied the game at 49 with 13:25 left.
Stanford struggled early in overtime. Pohlen fouled out less than a minute in, and Sarah Boothe committed two turnovers before committing her fifth foul and joining Pohlen on the bench 16 seconds later.
Wrestling
Stanford senior Zach Giesen and junior Nick Amuchastegui each won their weight division at the Reno Tournament of Champions on Sunday.
Justin Paulsen placed fourth in the 133-pound division.
Giesen won the 197-pound division, beating top-seeded Erik Schuth of Ohio, 8-2. Amuchastegui nudged Boise State’s Jake Swartz, 2-0, in the championshipo bout of the 174-pound weight class.
Paulsen fought through the wrestleback to earn a spot in the third-place match, where he lost to Oregon State’s Garrett Drucker, 6-4.
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports