SEATTLE — The Huskies went into the locker room at halftime with hopes of an upset Friday night.
Then reality set in.
After playing seventh-ranked Stanford nearly even for the game’s first 20 minutes, Washington was overwhelmed for the next 20, and the end result was a 73-53 Cardinal victory in front of 3,449 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
“You got two games for the price of one,” Washington coach Tia Jackson said. “In the first half we were one team and in the second half, we were a different team… For the most part, I thought our kids put together a phenomenal first half.”
For one half anyway, the Huskies played with one of the country’s elite teams. Washington led early in the game, and when Stanford eventually took the lead late in the half, the Huskies kept it close, and trailed 38-36 at halftime.
Stanford out-shot the Huskies in the half, but Washington kept it close by out-rebounding the Cardinal, the Pac-10’s No. 2 rebounding team, by a 24-13 margin.
The lead changed hands 10 times in the first half, and there were four ties, but any chances of an upset quickly vanished in the second half. Sophomore guard J.J. Hones set the tone by knocking down a three to open the half, and scored five more points early as the Cardinal went on a 12-0 run to take a 50-36 lead with 16 minutes, 15 seconds left in the game.
“They’re one of the top teams in the country, and you can’t get down against a team like that,” said senior guard Emily Florence, who finished with six rebounds and five assists. “They won’t let you come back.”
The run ended at 12, but the Huskies continued to fall behind as Stanford outscored the Huskies 26-6 in the first 13 minutes of the half. The Huskies started the second half missing their first nine shots, and shot just 18.9 percent in the half including a 1 for 11 effort on three-point attempts.
“We were just not hitting our shots,” said freshman forward Katelan Redmon. “Our shooting percentage went way down in the second half. We got rushed, we needed to slow down and run our offense, which we didn’t do in the second half.”
Stanford senior Candice Wiggins finished with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Hones added 16 points, including 11 in the second half. Wiggins now has 2,400 points in her career and is 14 shy of Lisa Leslie’s Pac-10 scoring record.
Andrea Plouffe was the only Washington player in double-figure scoring with 11 points.
Despite another lopsided loss to the Cardinal, Jackson saw growth from the team that lost its second Pac-10 game of the season to Stanford by 35 points after being outscored 32-12 in the first half.
This time around, the Huskies committed a season-low nine turnovers after having 23 the last time the two teams met. Washington out-rebounded Stanford by a 43-34 margin and had 25 offensive boards.
“We played the number seven team in the country to two points in the first half,” Jackson said. “That’s phenomenal growth. The last time we played them, we scored 12 points in the first half. It was an entirely different game. Fourteen games later, it’s a different game.”
Different game, but an all too familiar end result.
For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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