Feb. 18, 2000
BERKELEY, Calif. - Senior Milena Flores had 15 points and freshman Jamie Carey added 14 to lead Stanford University (16-6, 9-3) to an easy 81-56 Pac-10 win over host California (7-15, 2-10) on Friday night at Haas Pavilion. The Cardinal has now won 14 in a row over the Golden Bears, with 11 of those victories coming by 20 points or more.
The Cardinal, which has won five of its last six, moved into a first place tie with the victory. Stanford, Arizona and Oregon all stand atop the conference at 9-3, while UCLA is a half game back at 8-3. Stanford, which plays four of its final six games at home, returns to Maples Pavilion to face Washington State (4-18, 1-11) on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m.
Stanford broke a close game wide open with a 21-4 run early in the second half that put the game away. The Cardinal led 42-34 with 17:56 to go before reeling off the decisive run that put it on top 63-38 with 11:39 remaining.
The run began with back-to-back 3-pointers by Carey and a trey by Flores that extended the lead to 17. Flores followed her 3-pointer with a three-point play 36 seconds later that gave the visitors a commanding 20 point lead. Stanford, which entered the week leading all Division I schools in 3-point percentage at 43.0, made four of its nine shots from behind the arc in the final 20 minutes and finished the game 8-of-20 (40 percent) from long distance. Carey, who entered the week ranked 12th in Division I at 47.7 percent, led the way with 4-of-7 shooting from 3-point range.
After a California basket made it 56-38, the Cardinal capped the run with seven unanswered points for the 63-38 advantage. Junior center Carolyn Moos scored five of the seven points and finished the game with 11 points. The Golden Bears could get no closer than 22 points the rest of the way as it shot just 25.9 (7-of-27) percent from the floor in the second half. And for the first time this season, all 11 players on the Stanford roster got into the scoring column.
In addition to outscoring California 41-24 in the second half, the Cardinal also outrebounded the Golden Bears 27-11 over the final 20 minutes. Junior Sarah Dimson finished with 10 points and eight rebounds for the Cardinal in just 16 minutes of action, while sophomores Enjoli Izidor and Lindsey Yamasaki had six and five rebounds, respectively, in the second half alone.
Stanford also got out of the gates quickly in the first half, using a 14-2 run to take a 22-8 lead just 8:50 into the contest. Dimson had six points in the run on a pair of three-point plays to give the visitors the big early advantage. But the Golden Bears answered right back with a 16-4 run of their own to cut the deficit to just two (26-24) at the 4:43 mark. Stanford eventually took an eight-point lead into the half (40-32) after Carey and sophomore Lauren St. Clair both drained 3's in the final two minutes of the half.