On Friday, #9 Stanford women’s basketball defeated Portland at home by a final score of 81-51. Stanford senior forward Cameron Brink led the way for the Cardinal with 23 points, 15 rebounds, four blocks, and one steal while junior forward Kiki Iriafen had 13 points and seven rebounds. Portland guard Emme Shearer was the lone player for the Pilots who scored in double figures with 12 points. Stanford improves to 9-1 overall while Portland falls to 6-6.
BOX SCORE: Portland at Stanford- Friday, December 15th
VIDEO: Stanford WBB Postgame Press Conference | Portland
“You know, I think we knew coming into this game Portland is a talented team and a very well coached team,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said after the game. “They’re aggressive. I thought our team responded to the challenge really well and then once we kinda got, our second quarter was a bit bad, but otherwise I thought we were running our offense well and people just don’t have an answer for Cam and Kiki in there and was just, Cam really got it going in the second half, Brooke really got it going in the first half and the second half.
“I was really proud of Cam for the end of the game and not picking up a third foul in the second half. That was great. Great discipline. And just Brooke with her assists and her scoring just really helped us a lot. And our team played, we played well defensively. Got a lot of rebounds, too.”
Stanford got off to a dominant start, leading 28-9 at the end of the 1st quarter. Brink was up to eight points, five rebounds, and one block, doing a great job of controlling the paint. Brooke Demetre also had eight points for the Cardinal while Hannah Jump had six points. All things were going Stanford’s way.
In the 2nd quarter, Portland woke up a bit while Stanford struggled with Iriafen and Brink in foul trouble. The Pilots outscored the Cardinal 16-8, doing a nice job of chipping away at the 19 point hole they found themselves in. It was now a 36-25 lead for Stanford at halftime. Shearer was up to eight points, doing all she could to keep the Pilots in the game. As for Stanford, they shot an abysmal 2-14 from the field in the 2nd quarter as only the only two field goals were scored by Iriafen. Nunu Agara had the other four points of the quarter for the Cardinal, all at the foul line.
“Well, we’re really a whole different team when both Cam and Kiki are in foul trouble,” VanDerveer admitted. “If we’re ahead and they get two, they’re coming out. And it’s nothing against Nunu, but they don’t have anybody to sub in for them, the girl is 6’6”, so that hurt us. And we talked about it at halftime. Our team I thought made a good adjustment, Cam stayed in the game, Kiki picked u a quick one, and Brooke came in and did a great job. I thought Nunu played pretty well, Talana with her seven assists, Elena had ten rebounds, we rebounded well; Hannah hit some big shots, but our shooting was not great. We need to improve that.”
After a sluggish 2nd quarter, Stanford woke up in the 3rd quarter, outscoring Portland 25-13 in the quarter. Brink went wild in the 3rd quarter with 12 points, giving her 20 points in total on the night. Thanks to her bounce back performance, the Cardinal were back in business, leading 61-38 at the end of the 3rd quarter.
In the end, Stanford would go on to win 81-51 after outscoring Portland 20-13 in the 4th quarter. Stanford overall had the kind of outing they were hoping to have. They just had a bit of a blip in the 2nd quarter before getting back on track in the 3rd and 4th quarters. One key thing Stanford did well in this one was rebound. They outrebounded Portland 50-30. When Stanford is controlling the glass to that degree the other team might as well just go home. You cannot beat this Stanford team or any team for that matter if you get dominated on the glass like that.
Up next for Stanford is a home game on Wednesday, December 20th against UC Davis. That will begin at 1:00 PM PT on Stanford Live Stream and Varsity Network Radio.
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