Cardinal comfortable in opening rout of USC
LAS VEGAS — Stanford’s opening game of the Pac12 women’s tournament called for a statement, with the Cardinal ranked No. 4 in the country and riding high on their first Pac12 regularseason title since 2014.
The message was delivered: Stanford is the team to beat. Ashten Prechtel had 15 points and 11 rebounds to lead Stanford to a 9253 victory over USC in a Pac12 quarterfinal on Thursday.
Haley Jones and Hannah Jump each had 14 points, and Lacie Hull added 10 points for the Cardinal (232), who improved to 486 alltime in the Pac12 tournament and 181 in the quarterfinals.
“I loved our balance,” Stanford coach Tara Van Derveer said. “I think we’ve got weapons. We’ve got inside game and outside game. You know, I think it was fun to be able to spread it around.”
USC coach Mark Trakh agreed.
“That looks like a team that can vie for the national championship,” Trakh said. “They’re deep. They’re long. They can shoot. They’ve got everything on that team.”
Alissa Pili led USC (1112) with nine points.
Stanford, which went 192 in conference play, also swept its regularseason series with USC by way of 8060 and 8659 routs, giving the Cardinal an average winning margin of 28.6 in the three games.
Stanford has now held 11 opponents to 53 or fewer points.
“I really loved our defense coming out. We ran hard,” Van Derveer said. “We play in a very tough conference, and I think the fact that we had a lot of these games, it really got us ready for this.”
The Cardinal will face Oregon State in Friday’s semifinal. The Beavers (126) barely got by Cal on Wednesday, but had enough left in the tank to surprise No. 19 Oregon 7164 earlier Thursday.
Stanford was dominant from the opening tip. USC missed its first eight shots and didn’t get its first field goal until the 4:37 mark, when Kyra White cut Stanford’s lead to 113. The Cardinal scored the next 10 points, extending their advantage to 213.
Stanford led 315 after scoring the first eight points of the second quarter. The Cardinal went 9for21 from 3point range in the first half, while the Trojans missed all 11 of their firsthalf attempts from beyond the arc.
#9 UCLA 58, Washington 46: Michaela Onyenwere and Charisma Osborne each scored 12 points, with Osborne adding 10 rebounds, and the Bruins (154) used a balanced attack to turn away the Huskies (714). UCLA led by just 4239 after three quarters before pulling away in the fourth.
#11 Arizona 60, Washington State 44: Trinity Baptiste had 13 of her 17 points in the first half for the secondseeded Wildcats (164), who pulled away with an 110 run in the third quarter. The Cougars (1211) had 20 of their 26 turnovers in the first half but only trailed 2921 at the break.
Oregon State 71, #19
Oregon 64: Freshman Talia von Oelhoffen had 19 points and Aleah Goodman added 13 points and seven assists for the Beavers. Taylor Mikesell had 24 points for the Ducks (139), who had a firstround bye.