Stanford women’s basketball easily dispatches UC-Davis

The Cardinal women are now riding a six-game winning streak after their 68-42 victory over UC-Davis on Sunday.

Senior forward Erica McCall notched 17 points and pulled down a baker’s dozen (13) rebounds, her third triple-double in as many games. Junior guard Brittany McPhee added 11 as the only other Stanford player to hit double figures in scoring.

McCall has been a major factor for the early in the season for the 8-1 Cardinal, sitting just now inside the top ten in the AP Poll (No. 10).

Her effort in the paint was especially needed on Sunday as Stanford’s three-point shooting suffered a drought. Season-leading three-point markswoman Karlie Samuelson (47% 3-point shooter) missed all four of her attempts from downtown, and the Cardinal finished 3-of-19 (15.8%) from beyond the arc as a team.

As you can imagine, it was a welcome sight for Tara VanDerveer to see the offense shred the Aggies’ interior defense (47 points in the paint to UCD’s 10) at will. McCall’s thirteen boards were also a big help in out-rebounding the Aggies 54-38.

The Cardinal dominated in nearly every statistical category, never trailing once in the game and, despite some offensive struggles, left everything on the court. The schedule now yields a two-week break for final exams before a big trip to Knoxville to face the Tennessee Volunteers on December 18.

Other Notes:

• Sunday’s win was VanDerveer’s 988th career victory on the #RaceTo1000, a mark she could hit this season. The Stanford head coach would join the great Pat Summitt as the only two coaches to reach 1000 career victories.
• Free-throw shooting was also an obstacle, albeit a minor one, in the victory. Stanford’s 9-of-24 (37.5%) makes from the charity stripe was its worst FT percentage since 2006 (Dec. 20 at USC).