On Wednesday, No. 24 Stanford women’s basketball defeated UC Davis by a final score of 69-56. Stanford sophomore forward Nunu Agara led the way for the Cardinal with 25 points and 10 rebounds while sophomore forward Courtney Ogden had 16 points and five rebounds. UC Davis forward Mazatlan Harris was the top performer for the Aggies with 17 points. Stanford improves to 4-0 overall while UC Davis falls to 1-2.

VIDEO: Stanford WBB Postgame Press Conference: UC Davis

BOX SCORE: UC Davis at Stanford-Wednesday, November 13th

“First obviously, everyone can see why we have so much respect for UC Davis,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said after the game. “We knew this would be a challenging game. Jen Gross and Joe and their staff, they do a fantastic job. They’re very well coached. They taught us the offense that we run and both teams are running the same offense and quite frankly, they ran their offense much better than we did. I thought they competed harder; obviously we’re very grateful to come out with a win.

“There were some real bright spots: Nunu played very well, Courtney played very well, I thought we did a good job on the boards, which is something that we’ve been struggling with, but I think thankfully that we have an opportunity to really learn from this game. Kind of coming out with urgency and playing hard, running our offense better, and we can look at the film and take some of the things that they did because they did it very well.”

Stanford once again rolled with a starting lineup of Talana Lepolo, Elena Bosgana, Brooke Demetre, Jzanyia Harriel, and Nunu Agara.

Stanford led 8-4 with 4:54 to go in the 1st quarter. Demetre was up to four points as the Cardinal were shooting 4-8 from the field while the Aggies were shooting 2-7.

At the end of the 1st quarter, it would be a 17-11 lead for Stanford. Agara was up to six points and four rebounds for the Cardinal while Ogden was on the board with a 3-pointer thanks to some nice ball movement.

Stanford would continue to lead 19-14 with 4:35 to go in the 2nd quarter. Stanford hadn’t scored in the last 2:12 while Davis hadn’t scored in the last 2:51. Both teams were having a tough time putting up points.

At halftime, Stanford led 29-21. Agara was leading the way for the Cardinal with nine points and six rebounds. It was kind of an ugly half, but the Cardinal were up.

Stanford would lead 39-32 with 3:34 to go in the 3rd quarter. It had been a rough shooting night for the Cardinal as they were 16-41 from the field and 2-11 from 3-point range. The Aggies were hanging around as a result.

UC Davis would start to close the gap as Stanford was up by only three points (41-38) with 2:34 to go in the 3rd quarter. Harris was up to 11 points for the Aggies, who had made four of their last four field goals. Stanford called for time.

“Yeah, they really got it going with their threes,” Paye said of Davis’ performance in the 3rd quarter. “We kind of had some missed assignments. 33 kind of knocked down a three, I think 14 knocked down, we just lost them in transition. I think we could have been switching better. They started picking on people, kind of putting different people in the pinch, and that’s something that Jen does very well. She really knows how to move the pieces around. Put different people in the pinch so they can really attack and drive.

“4 got it going, driving to the basket and when people start hitting threes, we’ve been there before. Kind of on the other side of it and then kind of, people start extending their defense and then more driving lanes to the basket. I just thought they were more aggressive.”

At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led 49-47. UC Davis briefly took the lead, but Stanford had the lead once more after a 3-pointer by Ogden to beat the buzzer. She was up to 12 points.

“T [Talana] could have obviously shot that and she passed up a good shot for a better shot,” Ogden said of her buzzer beater. “It was wide open and I’m glad I hit it.”

Stanford would lead 63-51 with 4:05 to go as they were on a 12-0 run. Agara was up to 24 points and nine rebounds for the Cardinal while Ogden was up to 14 points. It looked like the Cardinal would indeed escape with the win after getting a good scare from the Aggies.

In the end, Stanford would walk out with a 69-56 victory. It wasn’t a pretty win as they had a difficult time getting into a good offensive rhythm, but at the same time, they should still feel good that they found a way to get it done in the end. Agara and Ogden both stepped up when they were called upon, which should give the two of them some confidence early on this season.

“I think it was just our number was called,” Agara said of the performance she and Ogden had. “Previous games other people have stepped up, so it was just about stepping up in general.”

“I mean, honestly it didn’t really feel that way on the floor,” Ogden added. “I mean, we played team ball and so we were moving the ball and our shots were falling. Nunu and I.”

As for UC Davis, this is a disappointing loss only in that they could have won this one. They did a great job of executing their game plan for much of the night. I think they just suffered from a common problem that a lot of underdogs have, which is belief. Once these underdogs team start to realize they might actually win, that’s often when they start to fall apart. I feel like that’s what happened to Davis.

“You know, this is, I kind of knew this was gonna happen today,” Paye said. “Again, we know they’re a very good team and I have tremendous confidence in our team. This will help us. This will help us. Obviously I’ve been coaching for a long time and we have a great staff and great players. I was excited how we responded in the fourth quarter. This will help us. This will help us.

“Not everything’s gonna be a thirty point win or shooting seventy percent from three all the time. We knew that. We were excited about it, but we’re not counting on those things happening in every game. You’re not always going to play your best basketball and winners find a way to win and I was excited that our team did that today.”

Up next for Stanford is a road game at Indiana on Sunday, November 17th. That will tipoff at 11:00 AM PT on FS1.

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