On Monday, Stanford women’s basketball defeated Cal Poly by a final score of 81-45. Stanford senior forward Brooke Demetre led the way for the Cardinal with 17 points and seven rebounds while sophomore forward Nunu Agara (15 points & 6 rebounds), junior guard Tess Heal (14 points), and senior guard Elena Bosgana (10 points & 7 rebounds) also scored in double figures. Stanford improves to 6-1 overall while Cal Poly falls to 3-4 overall.
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VIDEO: Stanford WBB Postgame Press Conference: Cal Poly
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Cal Poly-Monday, November 25th
“That was a great win for our team,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said after the game. “First, Shanele Stires is an old friend of mine, an old teammate of mine. So, I knew their team would be well prepared and would play hard. Which they did and they came out ready to compete. Our team did not have the best first half. You know, they were really more aggressive than we were, we were playing kind of disjointed and not together. I think we were showing some frustration out there. Maybe taking some ill-advised shots, but I thought our team kind of stuck with it, we really regrouped at halftime and came out and had a much better second half that I was really proud of.
“I thought the key to the game was when we started attacking the basket and Tess obviously did that. Got layups driving left, layups driving right, got to the free throw line; Chloe got the basket, Shay got to the basket, Elena got to the basket, MA [Mary Ashley Stevenson] got there by cutting. That’s really what they were giving us and we’ve talked to our team that we opened up the season shooting the ball extremely well.
“We continue to have excellent shooters, but teams are really keen on taking that away. Our team, I think made the adjustment in the second half that okay, hey, they’re going to be out on us, we need to attack the basket and we have plenty of players who are more than capable of doing and that so I was really pleased with that.”
Stanford jumped out to a 15-7 lead at the end of the 1st quarter as Agara was up to six points and three rebounds on 3-5 shooting from the field. Cal Poly guard Sidney Richards had all seven points for the Mustangs on 2-2 shooting from the field and 2-2 shooting from the foul line.
In the 2nd quarter, Stanford and Cal Poly both scored 18 points, making it a 33-25 lead for Stanford at halftime. Agara was up to 11 points and three rebounds for the Cardinal to lead all scorers while Heal was up to six points. Richards’ seven points was still leading the way for the Mustangs.
“Well, I’m looking at it, it was a tie score in the second quarter, obviously we’re not excited about that,” Paye said. “I think, we did jump out to a 9-0 lead, they took a time out, and I told our team before the game, I just said look, I know their coach and their team will play hard no matter what, and they’re going to keep competing for 40 minutes and I thought we took our foot off the gas. Honestly, it did not look like Stanford basketball out there for a stretch, just kind of undisciplined, poor shot selection, taking short cuts, not playing together, and again, credit to our team that we regrouped at halftime and really kind of what I call got it together. You know, but our team knows, like if you come out, we very easily couple have put ourselves in a hole coming up playing like that and hopefully we learned a lesson from that.”
Stanford would go up 43-25 with 6:33 to go in the 3rd quarter. Heal was up to 12 points for Stanford after a nice triple. The Cardinal were starting to gain some separation. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford would lead 61-41, having outscored Cal Poly 28-16 in the quarter. Heal (14 points), Agara (13 points), and Demetre (12 points) were all in double figures for Stanford.
Stanford would put the clamps down on Cal Poly in the 4th quarter, leading 79-42 with 3:42 to go. Stanford was outscoring Cal Poly 18-1. Demetre had her 17 points and seven rebounds at this point as the reserves were coming in.
In the end, Stanford would win 81-45 as they outscored Cal Poly 20-4 in the 4th quarter. It took the Cardinal a bit to get going, but once they did, it was over. Stanford won with the kind of dominance that I was expecting in the end.
Up next for Stanford is a home game against UC San Diego on Black Friday. Tipoff will be at 2:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
Just to quickly touch on the Tritons, they are 1-6 overall right now, so on paper they look really bad. However, three of their losses were in overtime to Saint Mary’s (Double OT), Air Force, and Denver. The Air Force and Denver games being on the road. So, they could easily be 3-4 right now instead of 1-6 or even 4-3.
Their top scorer is senior forward Kayanna Spriggs, who is averaging 12.4 and 6.7 rebounds per game. She’s playing quite well and has two other teammates scoring in double figures as well, so they do have some weapons.
Ultimately, I expect Stanford to win 80-55. I think UCSD will put up a decent little fight before Stanford pulls away late.
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