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Palo Alto Online

Stanford reaches one goal

by Rick Eymer

If the regular season was a primary race, consider the Stanford women's basketball team a landslide victor in winning the nomination for the Cardinal party.

Now the real campaign begins.

Stanford, which completed the Pac-10 season with an 18-0 record, its fourth perfect conference mark in school history, is guaranteed at least two more games this year, and could play eight more by reaching the NCAA championship game on March 31 in San Antonio, women's basketball version of a national election.

The polls have Stanford, ranked second behind Connecticut, an early favorite to make a run at the Huskies, the lone unbeaten Division I team left standing. The Cardinal are 28-1 overall heading into the Pac-10 tournament in Eugene this weekend.

"This tournament is going to be do-or-die," said senior Lindsey Yamasaki. "For a team to beat us would be a big deal."

Stanford opens play on Saturday against either UCLA or California. The conference tournament championship is slated for Monday at 7:30 p.m. (Fox Sports Net).

Then its on to the NCAA tournament, which should find its way to Maples Pavilion for two games, sort of an encore performance.

If Stanford meets the Bruins, it would mean a repeat of its final regular season game in which the Cardinal mauled UCLA, 98-80, on Sunday as Yamasaki scored 33 points. She was 11-of-17 from the field, including a 7-of-10 effort from three-point range.

With 504 points, Yamasaki already owns the 17th best scoring season ever in Stanford annals. If the Cardinal keeps winning, and Yamasaki merely sticks to her average of about 17 points a game, she could wind up third on the single-season list.

Cori Enghusen and Bethany Donaphin (18 points vs. the Bruins) have also made their marks. Enghusen has 45 blocked shots, placing her squarely in the running toward Val Whiting territory, who owns the top four single-season blocked shots marks. Enghusen currently ranks sixth, two behind Whiting's "worst" season.

Bethany has 43 blocks, which ranks seventh.

Then there's Nicole Powell, who is enjoying one of the greatest seasons by a Stanford women's player ever. Whiting, Jennifer Azzi and Kate Starbird will soon be welcoming another member to their rarified air.

Whiting, the Cardinal's best rebounder and shot blocker ever, was on both of Stanford's national championship teams, Azzi, on just about every career list possible, was part of the first one and Starbird is the school's career scoring leader.

To date, Powell has 461 points (No. 22 on the single-season list), 270 rebounds (No. 7) and 177 assists (tied for No. 9 with Molly Goodenbour). The possibilities are endless.

The victory over UCLA was Stanford's 20th consecutive, tied for fourth-longest in history with the 1989-90 national championship team, and the 28 victories is tied for sixth-best. Eight more wins would establish new highs in each category.

Kelley Suminski added 18 points and Powell had 10 assists in the win over the Bruins.

The 16 3-pointers also tied a school record set last season at Washington.

"We wanted to get the ball inside and some people just didn't shoot well for us inside, but our perimeter game was really strong," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "We have really good shooters on our team. They're open, they're knocking down shots."

The Bruins held the lead only once -- in the first minute. The Cardinal responded with two separate runs that would put them up 50-32 at halftime.

Yamasaki's back-to-back 3-point baskets during a second-half surge gave the Cardinal their biggest lead, 66-40 with 16:06 to play. Stanford led by at least 15 for the remainder of the game.

Powell's 36 points in Stanford's 78-60 victory over USC tied Kristin Folkl's effort from Jan. 24, 1998 for fifth-best single-game performance.

Yamasaki added 20 points as Stanford trailed at halftime for just the second time this season.

Southern California led 36-28 at halftime, but Powell scored 15 points during a 21-3 run that put the Cardinal up 49-39 with 7:40 gone in the second.

"I was mad at the team," said Powell, who was challenged by VanDerveer at halftime to step up.

The Trojans missed their first eight shots in that half and shot a season-low 29.3 percent overall.

Stanford shot 68 percent in the second half and finished at 61.7, their second-best this season.

"We were very sloppy and we played pathetic defense in the first half," said VanDerveer, whose team committed 25 turnovers. "Sometimes, it seems like our team has to get a little bit of a bloody nose before we join the fight.