STANFORD, Calif. – Erica McCall, Lili Thompson, Karlie Samuelson, Kaylee Johnson and Marta Sniezek each received recognition from the league’s coaches when the All-Pac-12, All-Defensive and All-Freshman teams were announced by the conference office on Monday afternoon.
McCall, who earlier in the day received espnW National Player of the Week and Pac-12 Player of the Week honors after averaging 25.0 points and 11.5 rebounds over the weekend, was named to both the All-Pac-12 squad and the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team. Thompson earned her second straight All-Pac-12 accolade and also was voted Pac-12 All-Defensive honorable mention while Karlie Samuelson received an All-Pac-12 honorable mention nod. Johnson was a Pac-12 All-Defensive honorable mention pick and Sniezek landed on the Pac-12 All-Freshman honorable mention team.
Junior forward Erica McCall headlines the class with her selection as both an All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Defensive performer, the first conference postseason honors of her career. She leads Stanford in rebounding (9.4) and blocks (2.1) and is second in scoring (14.1). Fifteen of her 17 career double-doubles have come this season and McCall ranks 14th nationally in that category.
A 51 percent overall shooter, McCall made the first 3-pointers of her career against No. 7 Oregon State and Oregon last weekend, going 4-of-9 (44.4 percent) from behind the arc. She has scored in double figures in 14 of Stanford’s last 15 games. In the Cardinal’s last five, McCall is averaging 20.6 points on 59 percent shooting, 9.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks. On Sunday she joined Jayne Appel, Chiney Ogwumike and Joslyn Tinkle as the only Stanford players to tally 60 blocks in a single season.
Lili Thompson earned her second selection to the All-Pac-12 squad in her junior season. She is Stanford’s leading scorer at 14.4 points per game and tops the team in assists with 3.5 per game, both marks which rank 10th in the league. Against Colorado on Jan. 10, Thompson became the 36th Stanford player to surpass 1,000 career points. Now at 1,170 she is 29th all-time at Stanford between Maggie Nelson (1,180; 1974-78) and Kami Anderson (1,141; 1984-88).
Thompson has scored 20 or more seven times this season, including in wins against Washington and Washington State at the end of January. In those two, she averaged 28.5 points per game and shot 63 percent from the field (22-of-35) and 71 percent from the 3-point line (10-of-14). Thompson scored 41 percent of Stanford’s points (57) and was named both espnW National Player of the Week and Pac-12 Player of the Week for her efforts.
A dead-eye shooter, Karlie Samuelson received notice from the league’s coaches with her All-Pac-12 honorable mention accolade. She is 62-of-137 from behind the arc this season and is fifth in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage (.453). A career 40.7 percent 3-point shooter, Samuelson has made 135 from deep in her career.
Eighty percent (483-of-626) of her career points have come on 3-pointers (405) and free throws (95). The junior captain has made more than twice as many field goals from behind the arc as she has from inside, converting 63 2-point attempts. She is 25-of-55 (.455) on such shots this season.
Twelve of her 26 career games in double figures scoring have come in Stanford’s last 21 outings and in her last 16 games, Samuelson is 34-of-68 on 3-pointers (.500). In the Cardinal’s 22-point win over No. 7 Oregon State on Friday night, the junior tallied the first double-double of her career, with 13 points and a career-high 12 rebounds.
Kaylee Johnson, fifth in the league averaging 1.6 blocks per game, was named Pac-12 All-Defensive honorable mention. The sophomore has come on strong in Stanford’s last 22 games, averaging 7.4 points on 53.8 percent shooting (64-of-119) to go along with 7.4 rebounds. Johnson opened the year averaging 1.1 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 22.2 percent from the floor in the Cardinal’s first eight. She has scored 10+ nine times in those 22 games after doing it all of six times as a freshman.
First-year point guard Marta Sniezek rounded out Stanford’s honorees with her Pac-12 All-Freshman honorable mention selection. Sniezek is averaging 4.0 assists in Stanford’s last nine games with a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio. In the first 20 games of the year, the freshman was handing out 1.8 assists and owned an assist-to turnover ratio of 0.9. On the year, she is averaging 2.4 points, 1.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
Stanford, the No. 4 seed in the upcoming Pac-12 Tournament, has a bye into the quarterfinals and will play the winner of No. 5 Washington and No. 12 Colorado on Friday, March 4 at 8:30 p.m.