Cardinal romp to #800

Coach Azzi had good reason to be proud of her young team tonight. The Dons showed good basketball skills, kept up with (or a bit ahead of) the Cardinal for about ten minutes, and never quit trying. But they couldn't prevail over the Cardinal's size, strength and skill and went down 100-45.

I'm sure Coach Tara also felt proud as every member of the team contributed to her 800th career victory:

• All healthy members played at least seven minutes and scored at least three points.
• Kayla had a monster double-double with 16 points and a career-high 20 rebounds.
• Sara sank four three-pointers, scored 14 points, and had eight rebounds — all career-highs.
• Joslyn also scored a career-high 14 points.
• Lindy started for the second game in a row, played the point for 21 minutes, and sank the three that took the score to triple digits.
• Chiney, who rolled her ankle in practice today, kept very busy leading the high-five salutes to the eleven three-pointers from Lindy, Jeanette, Joslyn, Grace, Mikaela, Sara and Toni

And everyone was proud of Tara — her players, her former players, her staff, all her fans ... It was a happy night in San Francisco.

Here are the game reports:

• VanDerveer Gets 800th Win by Janie McCauley (Associated Press)
• Only fitting that Azzi was part of VanDerveer's landmark victory by Ann Killion (Sports Illustrated)
• Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer gets 800th victory by John Shea (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Stanford women's basketball coach Tara VanDerveer gets her 800th win as Cardinal defeats USF by Elliott Almond (Mercury News), includes a gallery of photos by Nhat V. Meyer
• Stanford's VanDerveer gets 800th win by Jake Curtis

The box score and play-by-play,

And more celebratory photos :