Jan. 13, 2005
By JANIE McCAULEY
AP Sports Writer
STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Brooke Smith scored 14 of her 21 points in the first half, and No. 6 Stanford beat rival California for the ninth straight time, 88-53 on Thursday night.
Candice Wiggins added 18 points and four assists and made 7 of 8 free throws as Stanford won its 31st straight Pac-10 home game, needing little time to take control with its up-tempo, high-energy style. Coach Tara VanDerveer liberally used her bench, and by halftime all 13 available players had been in the game and 10 of them had scored.
Wiggins had eight points during a 16-0 second-half run, and Susan King Borchardt scored four during the spurt. Borchardt, who missed the Cardinal's first nine games with an injured left foot, finished with 10 points in her first start of the season. Before this year, she'd started all 75 games in which she played.
The Cardinal (14-2, 6-1 Pac-10) improved to 33-2 on their home court dating to the 2002-03 season. They haven't lost in Maples Pavilion during conference play since a 62-59 defeat to Southern California on March 1, 2001.
Eziamaka Okafor had a career-high 14 points and also grabbed five rebounds for Stanford.
Renee Wright came off the bench to score 16 points to lead the overmatched Golden Bears, who have beaten Stanford only once in the past 25 meetings and trailed by as many as 42 points this time. Cal came in averaging 68.1 points per game, and this was the Bears' third-lowest scoring output of the season.
Leigh Gregory added 14 points for Cal and Jessica Lawson 12 points and five rebounds.
Stanford, coming off a successful sweep of the Arizona schools on the road, held Cal (8-8, 2-5) without a field goal for 9 minutes, 34 seconds during the first half - with Gregory ending the drought on a basket at the 8:18 mark.
The Cardinal will get a much bigger test Saturday, when 14th-ranked Boston College comes to town.
After Cal went ahead 4-2, Stanford used a 13-0 run to build a big lead. The Cardinal made seven of their first nine shots, and the students began chanting "It's all over!" only seven minutes into the game.
Stanford shot 60 percent in the first half on the way to a 49-17 lead at the break, matching its second fewest points allowed in a half all season. Cal had more turnovers (18) at halftime than points.
The Cardinal senior class won its 100th game.