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Weekend of March 6-8, 2009
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
The Stanford Daily
By DANIEL BOHM
STAFF WRITER
The No. 2 Stanford women’s basketballteam shrugged off a sluggish start and thenheld off a furious comeback to beat visit-ing Arizona 70-67, Thursday.The heavily favored Cardinal (25-4, 16-1 Pacific-10 Conference) looked to havepulled away from the Wildcats (11-17, 4-13) in the second half, behind a career-high 21 points from sophomore guardJeanette Pohlen—but a late, 13-0 Wild-cats run drew the visitors to within 65-64with 1:54 to play.But junior Jayne Appel came up with abig offensive rebound and put back on amissed Jillian Harmon jumper to halt Ari-zona’s run.Appel had difficulties for much of thegame but felt somewhat vindicated by theone big play.“I didn’t play well the entire game,” shesaid. “I had a lot of turnovers and strug-gled inside, but I got the big shot when Ihad to.”After the Appel lay-in, Wildcat Court-ney Clements then hit a three to pull Ari-zona within one, but two Pohlen freethrows and a missed, desperation three byAshley Frazier left the Cardinal with thevictory.Arizona led for much of the first half until an 11-2 Stanford run, highlighted by apair of Pohlen three-pointers near the endof the half, put the Cardinal up for good.Stanford struggled to adjust to the zonedefense that the Wildcats employed earlyon. Appel, the Cardinal’s leading scorer,was routinely double- and triple-teamed,leading nine first-half turnovers by theCardinal.Arizona’s zone defense looked vulner-able as the game progressed, however, asStanford shooters Pohlen and sophomoreKayla Pedersen got hot from the outsideto stretch the Cardinal lead to 65-51 with7:13 to play. The Cardinal didn’t scoreagain for almost five minutes.Pohlen, who knocked down a career-high five three-pointers, thanked the pres-ence of her star center for her open shots.“Jayne gets a lot of attention,” Pohlensaid. “And when she gets doubled, she is agood passer, so [I] had a lot of open looks.”Appel, who was held to just nine pointsand 11 rebounds, credited the Arizona de-fense as being one of the toughest she hasgone up against this year.“I haven’t seen a double that big,” shesaid. “It’s tough to make passes against[two girls] 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-5 that can jump out of the gym.”Stanford also struggled getting to theboards early, as the Cardinal was outre-bounded in the first half, 16-15.The Cardinal narrowly avoided a dev-astating upset loss, but with Cal’s loss toArizona State yesterday, the Stanfordwomen have now clinched at least a shareof the Pac-10 title.Stanford will host the Sun Devils onSaturday with a chance to win the confer-ence championship outright. Althoughhead coach Tara VanDerveer dismissedthe possibility, the Cardinal may havebeen looking past Arizona.“Arizona played a great game,” Van-Derveer said. “When we had them down,they didn’t quit...We can’t just show up,put on the uniforms and pencil in wins.”In addition to Pohlen’s big game, theCardinal got a solid performance out of Pedersen, who put up 16 points, includingtwo big, second-half threes, along with sixrebounds.Pedersen, last week’s Pac-10 Player of the Week, seems to be rounding intoshape at the right part of the season, whichwill be key to Stanford’s success comepostseason.Stanford has now won 12 consecutivegames since losing in Berkeley on Jan. 18.It will look to wrap up the season with onemore victory on Saturday.VanDerveer hopes the experience of hard-fought games, like last night’s againstArizona, will help the Cardinal going intotournament time.“I didn’t see anybody falling apart forus,” the Stanford coach said. “This was agreat win for us tonight.”
Contact Daniel Bohm at bohmd@stan- ford.edu.
AGUSTIN RAMIREZ/The Stanford Daily
Jayne Appel prepares to shoot around a defender on Thursday against Arizona. Stanford has just one game leftto play before heading to the Pac-10 Conference tournament.
Wildcatscome close
ARIZONA STATE
(23-6, 15-2 Pac-10)
Maples Pavilion 12:30 PM
COVERAGE:
TV:
CSN Bay Area
RADIO:
KZSU 90.1 FM, (kzsu.stanford.edu)
UP NEXTPAC-10 TOURNAMENT
3/13-15Los Angeles
COVERAGE:
RADIOKZSU 90.1 FM (kzsu.stan-ford.edu)
NOTES:
The Stanford women’s basketball team earnedat least a share of the Pacific-10 Conference title witha win over Arizona Thursday night at Maples Pavilion.The Stanford women were led offensively by sopho-more Jeanette Pohlen’s 21 points on 6-11 shootingincluding 5-8 from three-point range. Junior Jayne Appel, meanwhile, scored nine to move into 13thplace all-time on the Cardinal scoring chart.
Women hold on
Playing it out, nomatter what
“We can’t justshow up, put onthe uniform andpencil in wins.”
— TARA VANDERVEER
head coach
STANFORD DEFEATS ARIZONA, 70-67
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