Recap: Stanford Women’s Basketball surges past Santa Clara
On Thursday, Stanford women’s basketball defeated Santa Clara 79-58. Stanford senior point guard Talana Lepolo led the way for the Cardinal with 16 points and four assists on 5-10 shooting from the field and 4-6 shooting from 3-point range while freshman forward Lara Somfai (14 points & 13 rebounds), junior forward Nunu Agara (13 points & 9 rebounds), freshman point guard Hailee Swain (13 points & 5 assists), junior guard Chloe Clardy (12 points), and freshman forward Alexandra Eschmeyer (11 points, 12 rebounds, & 4 blocks) also finished in double figures. Santa Clara redshirt junior guard Maia Jones was the top scorer for the Broncos with 16 points. Stanford improves to 2-0 on the season while Santa Clara falls to 1-1.
VIDEO: Stanford Women’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference: Santa Clara
BOX SCORE: Santa Clara at Stanford-Thursday, November 6th
“That was a great win for our team,” Stanford head coach Kate Paye said after the game. “You know, Santa Clara is an excellent team and we knew that coming in. We talked a lot about it. I have known Loree Payne for a long time. I have tremendous respect for her as a coach. Obviously, this is her first year. She’s assembled a fantastic roster, bringing some of her players from NAU, and some other transfers, incorporating them with the returning players from Santa Clara. They’re very experienced, very skilled, obviously excellent shooters, and they play really hard and I thought they had a great game plan and they really tested us and that is a great thing for us.
“I was really proud of the way our team responded and played a much better second half than a first half. I thought we showed that we kinda were learning as the game went on. You know, I think Alex Eschmeyer had a fantastic game, just absolutely fantastic. When you look at the stat sheet, she was +32 and that was the highest on our team. Just highly efficient and very disruptive defensively. I can’t say enough about her.
“And then how exciting, you know, I’ve been telling everybody how excited I am to have Talana back and now I think everybody can actually, like, really see it. I mean she is playing fantastic. Defense, organizing the floor, shooting the ball, it’s just great to have her back on the court.”
Stanford led 17-12 at the end of the 1st quarter as Santa Clara was hanging around. Somfai was off to a hot start for the Cardinal with seven points and six rebounds, doing a great job of setting the pace early. Stanford was shooting 4-9 from the field and 9-10 from the foul line, Swain shooting 5-6 at the line on her own.
The 2nd quarter would be tight as Stanford only outscored Santa Clara by one point, making it a 33-27 game at halftime. Somfai was up to 10 points and eight rebounds, hitting a huge corner three to beat the buzzer. She was balling out and really carrying the load.
With 4:52 to go in the 3rd quarter, Stanford was up 37-36 as Maia Jones was leading the Broncos and all scorers with 14 points on 4-8 shooting from the field. Stanford was shooting 29.7% from the field while Santa Clara was shooting 34.2%.
At the end of the 3rd quarter, Stanford led 55-42 as it looked like the Cardinal were finally going to get the separation they needed. Somfai, Agara, Eschmeyer, and Lepolo were all in double figures at this point as Stanford ended the quarter on a 16-4 run.
With 4:53 to go, Stanford led 63-54 as Santa Clara was still hanging around. Stanford was in the midst of a 2:13 scoring drought. Fortunately for Stanford, they found a way to finish strong as Clardy nailed a couple threes while Lepolo knocked down her fourth three of the night. In the end, Stanford walked out with a commanding 79-58 victory.
“Yeah, I mean, my teammates and my coaches give me confidence every day in my shot,” Lepolo said. “It’s just when preparation meets opportunity, really. And yeah, so I just let it fly when I didn’t see a hand in my face and yeah, it just stems from all the confidence I get from my teammates.”
For Stanford, while not the prettiest game for its entirety, they still in the end walked out with an acceptable result. I had them winning 85-57, which is +28. Winning by +21 is a bit closer than I thought it would be, but still in the general range. Stanford did a good job of closing on the door and not letting Santa Clara truly threaten to win.
“I would say it was kind of what Coach Kate was saying. We just made a decision to run what we run and really come together on the offensive end,” Eschmeyer affirmed. “Defensive end as well, but really just slow ourselves down, like run our offense, get great looks on the three, all of those things.”
The most encouraging part of this win for Stanford was getting six players scoring in double figures. That kind of balance should serve them well and then when half of those six players are freshmen, that shows a lot of room for growth as the season goes on. Eschmeyer getting four blocks and zero fouls is definitely something Stanford can build on. An incredible stat for any player, let alone a freshman.
“Yeah, you know, we worked a lot in practice just on defense and help side and that’s just, I guess my mindset going into the game was just to focus on that and control that the best I could,” Eschmeyer said. “So, I would say, yeah, just it’s always been a focus on me to try to not foul. So, just coming over and trying to contest the shot, got a few blocks that way, so that was good.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Cal Poly on Sunday, November 9th. Tipoff is set for 1:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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