Short-handed Stanford comes home a winner
TOP 25 WOMEN
NO. 1 STANFORD 70,
NO. 11 OREGON 63
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Down three key players who are quarantined and road weary, No. 1 Stanford needed every defensive stop down the stretch.
Haley Jones returned to her hometown and had 18 points and six rebounds, and No. 1 Stanford beat No. 11 Oregon 70-63 on Friday. The Cardinal were playing in Northern California for the first time in nearly a month.
Francesca Belibi’s threepoint play with 17 seconds remaining in the third capped a second decisive 9-0 run that period by the short-handed Cardinal (10-0, 7-0 Pac-12).
“It just meant a lot to me and the team,” senior Anna Wilson said. “It’s amazing to be down three people — three important people, too, whether it’s a leader, a scorer, a three-point shooter, rebounder — to not have those big pieces and understand that our team is playing for them and just how close our team is.”
Guards Lexie Hull and Hannah Jump and forward Alyssa Jerome were the three not on the bench or the court.
The game was played at Kaiser Permanente Arena, home of the Golden State Warriors’ G League affiliate. Stanford played in Northern California for the first time since a victory at rival California in Berkeley on Dec. 13, and the Cardinal haven’t been able to play or practice on campus since Santa Clara County’s restrictions on sports came down Nov. 28, and the team left town Dec. 2.
Oregon (8-2, 6-2) lost again after it fell out of the top 10 with a home defeat to UCLA that ended the Ducks’ nation’s best 27-game winning streak. The Ducks had won the past three with Stanford but have never beaten a top-ranked team.