SAN JOSE “”mdash; Leading by 11 with less than 15 minutes to go,
the Bruins found themselves in what seemed like a runaway game.
But surprise, surprise, Stanford was Stanford.
“We had the momentum, and I think that Stanford is a good
basketball team, but they got a lot of breaks down the
stretch,” UCLA coach Kathy Olivier said. “That pretty
much put them over the edge.”
The Cardinal mounted a comeback in the second half, and in the
eyes of guard Nikki Blue, the Stanford crowd mimicked the
atmosphere of Stanford’s home court at HP Pavilion.
“If you have the home court and good fans on your side,
you’ll have a lot of momentum and more energy than the other
team,” Blue said.
For once the catalyst for Stanford was not senior Nicole
Powell.
It was junior Kelley Suminski who tanked the Bruin’s lead
and hopes.
Suminski connected on three three-pointers within two minutes of
play that jump-started an ailing Stanford squad.
“When they went into zone, that’s just what they
were giving us is that three-point shot,” Suminski said.
Now all knotted at 49-49, the momentum swung to the Cardinal
side as they converted a series of open outside shots that
dumbfounded the Bruins’ defense.
“They went into a zone, and I thought that hurt
them,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “It really
gave us a spark.”
Despite, the second-half surge by Stanford, the Bruins found
themselves in striking distance down by four after a pair of Noelle
Quinn free throws with just 33 seconds left in the game.
However, seconds wasted away, and the Bruins were hesitant to
foul.
Maybe it was Stanford’s league-leading free-throw
percentage that scared the Bruins ““ Stanford was 15-18 for
the game ““ but the Bruins finally came out of the slumber and
realized they needed to foul.
“My thought process went a bit whacky, but I felt like
let’s keep it close and not start fouling,” Olivier
said.
Guard Nikki Blue instinctively tackled and ripped the ball from
junior T’Nae Thiel’s possession.
A desperation lunge at the hoop by Blue resulted in a foul call
that gave the Bruins a glimmer of hope.
But, Blue would only hit one of two free throws, pulling UCLA to
within three with just six ticks left on the clock.
Fate would have it that Powell would have the ball in her
possession after Stanford inbounded the ball.
The last chapter in an ongoing saga of Powell’s domination
over UCLA came to a close when she put the game out of reach with
one free throw.
When Quinn’s last-second three-point attempt fell short,
the Bruins’ regular season ended, and they now find
themselves in all too familiar position: sitting and waiting for
Selection Sunday.