This just in….at the half, it’s Iowa State 25, Jayne Apple 27.
Yes, that’s right, Jayne Appel of Stanford has single handedly outscored the whole Iowa State team in the first half. How did she do it? Well, it’s more a matter of what Iowa State didn’t do. They didn’t double cover her in the paint. Left in single coverage the whole first half, she scored 15 of the first 18 Stanford points. Pohlen hit a three in there. Then, around the 11 and a half mark Necka got a basket. Lindy got a three, I think. But it was Jayne going left, Jayne going right, Jayne missing and getting her own rebound and putting it back in.
The score was 38-25 at the half, with 27 of the points Jayne’s.
C and R have traveled again to Berkeley to see Stanford in the Elite Eight. We see someone cleaned up the peanut shells under our chairs. Thanks, Cal. Seatmates ask R what Jayne’s career high is, and R, with her fancy phone finds out it is 33.
Iowa State lives and dies by the three pointer and it looks like to C and R the Stanford team is on notice that if your player makes a three, you go to the bench. At least that’s what it seems like with Necka. She gets taken out a few times when her player scores. And all of our players are out on the perimeter, even our big girls of Jayne, Kayla and Necka. It seems to work as we limit them in the first half.
When the second half opens, Jayne goes right back to it and scores the first six points. Iowa State then half-heartedly tries a double team on Jayne. At first she kicks it out to other players and then decides the double team is not that strong and takes it in herself. The double team, instead of stopping her, just fouls her! And she has been struggling at the line of late. But she makes enough to get 33 with 17 minutes left.
Then it’s Jayne 34, Iowa 29, hee hee. The pro-Stanford crowd, while not as big as Saturday’s, is still pretty big for a Monday and is loving the Jayne Appel show.
Another seatmate asks R what the tournament record is. C remembers Candice Wiggins had 44 last year in the tournament, so that is the Stanford record, at least.
Jill is on a mission to get the ball to Jayne. The whole team must want Jayne to get the record, whatever it is. Jill is trying so hard to get ball to Jayne that she keeps forcing it and we keep turning it over. It is actually cute to see Stanford be so uncharacteristically unmethodical and sloppy, and care so much to hit Jayne.
Jayne hits her free throws for 40 points.
We have all our starters still in with 6 and a half minutes to go. C and R wonders if Tara is trying to make some kind of statement, such as, “you gave Duke the number one seed and they lost in the second round and we are still here beating teams by 20 or more points”. Also, if we let off and put in subs, and Iowa hits 3 or 4 three pointers, they are right back in it, or will make the score look respectable. And this game wasn’t even close.
Jayne ties Candice with a hook shot with three and a half minutes left. She gets one more basket to end up with 46, a school record and third best in tournament history and Tara says okay, and pulls her with 1:43 to play. Stanford wins 74-53, so 20 points it is.
The nets come down and Stanford is set for the final four….against…..Uconn.. Gulp.
The good news is we are the last team to beat them! The bad news is no one has beat them all season. Off to St. Louis!
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