Stanford women hold off Washington

SEATTLE - On a night the scoring only seemed to come in spurts, No. 6 Stanford leaned heavily on its defense.

Nothing came easy at the offensive end for Washington.

“I liked how hard people played position defense, scouting-report defense, we’ll call it,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “Knowing the personnel, knowing what things to take away from them.”

Lexie Hull had 17 points and 11 rebounds and No. 6 Stanford used a pair of big first-half runs to roll past Washington 58-41 on Friday night.

The Cardinal (19-2, 8-1 Pac-12) ?won their fourth straight following their lone conference loss against Oregon two weeks ago. It was Stanford’s eighth straight win over Washington.

Stanford raced to an early 13-point lead after a dominating first quarter, watched the entire lead evaporate in a matter of minutes and managed to still hold a 32-22 halftime advantage, thanks to a barrage of 3-pointers late in the first half.

That run late in the second quarter proved to be decisive as Washington never pulled closer than eight in the second half.

Kiana Williams was the only other Stanford player in double figures with 16 points. The Cardinal rolled despite shooting just 33% and were 2 of 13 on 3-pointers in the second half.

“I really trust our offense and as long as we run through every option eventually something is going to get working,” Hull said.

Washington’s inability to make a second charge at the Cardinal was mostly because of Stanford’s defense. Washington was the third team in the past seven games to get held under 50 by the Cardinal, and the Huskies shot just 28%

Specifically, Stanford was excellent at hounding Washington’s leading scorer Amber Melgoza. The senior was averaging 15.4 per game, but missed all eight of her shots and was held scoreless for the first time since her freshman season.

Melgoza had 17 in the first meeting with Stanford and scored 40 against the Cardinal in 2018.

“Somebody like Amber is a terrific player. For her not to score ... I’m like ‘wow,’” VanDerveer said.

JaQuaya Miller led Washington (10-10, 2-7) with 10 points, while Haley Van Dyke and T.T. Watkins each scored nine. It was Washington’s seventh straight loss after opening conference play 2-0. The Huskies’ previous two losses to USC and UCLA came in overtime.

“I think at times we play not to lose instead of playing to win and that impacts our game a lot,” Miller said.

Stanford jumped to a 16-3 lead after the first quarter when Washington made just 1 of 13 shots. The Cardinal lead was gone in barely four minutes after the Huskies opened the second quarter on a 15-2 run, pulling even at 18-all.