March 12, 2011

Perfect Pac-10 Tournament Champion

Perfect conference record (20-0) and tournament championship – for the second consecutive season. Well done, Cardinal!

The Cardinal put the icing on the cake today with a 64-55 victory over the UCLA Bruins.

It wasn't easy. In fact, it seemed nearly hopeless for the first 35 minutes. The Bruins were executing their pressure defense perfectly and shut down the Cardinal's inside game. The Cardinal couldn't get through the Bruins' impenetrable zone defense and their outside shots weren't falling — they made just five of 22 attempts in those 35 minutes. The Cardinal fell further and further behind — by double-digits early in the second half.

A victory began to seem possible halfway through the second half after Jeanette hit two three-pointers and Toni made a fast break layup after stealing the ball. The score was tied with six minutes left to play.

It all turned around a minute later when, in the space of a minute, Kayla stole the ball and passed it to Toni who raced down court for a jumper ... The Bruins missed their shot and Toni grabbed the rebound, raced down court again and made a layup ... UCLA called a timeout ... The Bruins missed their shot again, Chiney got the rebound, and Toni sank a three ... Cardinal up by six with four minutes left to play! Much cheering and huge sigh of relief from Cardinal fans!!

Toni was the game-high scorer with a career-high 17 points. Michelle Smith has written a fine story about her in Pac-10 News:
Freshman Kokenis rises to the occasion.

In spite of the tough Bruin defense, Nneka managed a near double-double of 15 points and nine rebounds — she was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Chiney was named to the All-Tournament team, along with Doreena Campbell (UCLA), Cassie Harberts (USC), Soana Lucet (Arizona) and Darxia Morris (UCLA).

The box score and play-by-play,

The press conference video with Tara, Kayla, Nneka and Toni,

A gallery of photos from the Associated Press

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I want to know is -- what kind of a name is Shotgun Spratling?

Unknown said...

. . . parents attended Berkeley mid/late '60's.