Cardinal Hounds Huskies 71-45

Although the UW Huskies had not won a conference game, Tempie in the pregame talk cautioned that they were well-coached and ran an aggressive defense that was meant to confuse their opponents with many different defensive looks.

This was evident in the first quarter when the Husky defense forced DiJonai to give up the ball on a five-second violation -- a rare type of turnover that we hadn't seen in a long time. Although the quarter ended with Stanford ahead 15-11, stats for rebounds, turnovers, and shooting percentages were even, and the team in purple were not looking like lap-dogs.

In the second quarter Stanford began to pull ahead on rebounds and perhaps the UW players began to feel the stress of running a constant pressing defense. The referees created some drama with multiple foul calls that the crowd wanted to overrule, and the half ended at 31-23.

The third quarter started well with a lovely block by Kaylee leading to a layup by Alanna. The Huskies dug in and pressed every inbound, and were successful in stealing the inbound ball on two successive tries. That didn't help them much; Stanford continued to rebound better and the quarter ended at 47-31.

The fourth quarter started with an exchange of three-point shots, but when around the seven-minute mark DiJonai hit a three and Alanna a layup to give Stanford a 20-point lead, some of the fight went out of the Dawgs, and from there it was a cruise to the final score. Defense was undoubtedly key to this win: Washington's Amber Melgoza, who came in averaging 22 points in conference games, was held to only five for this game.

Alanna led all scorers with 19 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two blocks.

Brittany had 15 points, three rebounds, three assists, and a steal, and spent a lot of time and effort defending Melgoza.

DiJonai had 11 points on three of four shooting, including making both of her three-point tries. She also had five rebounds, five assists, and three steals.

Kaylee led all rebounders with 12 and and all shot-blockers with five (5!)and was just two points shy of a double-double.

Kiana had an off-night for shooting, hitting only one of her six three-point tries, but still ended with seven points, two assists, a block, and two steals, and also contributed to defending Melgoza.

Every available player was given some time on the floor (Anna was still out recovering from a "high ankle sprain" , Maya was not feeling well, and Mikaela was cleared to warm up but not to play).

Alissa had five points including a three, and Estella made use of her short time on the floor to drop in a three of her own.

Encouraged by this pair of wins the team heads to Los Angeles for two challenging games next weekend as the PAC-12 season rolls on.

Here are game reports and commentary:

• Stanford blows past UW women 71-45, the Associated Press game recap
• Huskies Can’t Find the Offense in 71-45 Loss at Stanford, the Washington Athletics game recap
• Handled the Huskies, the Stanford Athletics game recap
• Washington’s offense can’t get going in loss to Stanford by Josh Kirshenbaum (The [UW] Daily)
• Women’s basketball takes care of business against Washington by Alexandre Bucquet (The Stanford Daily)
• Stanford women pull away from Washington 71-45 to complete sweep by Tom FitzGerald (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Stanford women take over second place in Pac-12 hoops from Palo Alto Online
• WBB: Stanford 71 Washington 45 from the CARDboard

The game statistics,

The game highlights video,

A video interview of DiJonai, "We were clicking on all cylinders'',

And the video press conference with Tara, Alanna, and Kaylee.