The Stanford Women’s Basketball game vs. Arizona State is, surprise, surprise, on TV, and R, being the resident season ticket holder, gets an email that a local bar in Los Gatos is showing the game and has invited ticket holders and all fans Stanford to attend. Wow. On TV and having the broadcast shown in a sports bar that serves alcohol no less, how lucky can we get? C and R will be there. We are warned it is a rare 6 PM start, so we head down there with plenty of time to get a table and order some food and have a grown up beverage.
C and R nod to the other Stanford fans, all decked out in Stanford gear to show their Stanford support with the added bonus of receiving 15% off their bar bill, hee hee. Then we discover there will be a raffle and prizes! Could this day turn out any better? The prizes are the shirts they throw when Stanford makes a three point shot, which is good because during the Stanford games, they NEVER throw to the section where C and R sit. But wait, there’s more, as they say on TV. There is a grand prize of a Stanford basketball that has been autographed by this year’s team. C wants the grand prize! She asks if they will be throwing the shirts if a three pointer is made and she gets back a non-plussed “No”. Apparently her joie de vie of throwing and grabbing shirts goes unshared with the contest promoter.
As the tables fill, we see our Number One Fan (NOF) come in, and offer her space at our table and we order drinks all around. The game starts and we cannot hear the sound, which is a bummer. We are rooting for Jayne Appel to get 13 rebounds to break Lisa Leslie’s PAC-10 rebounding record. We just have to hope they flash a graphic if she does. Funny thing is we can hear the commercials perfectly.
As the game goes on, C and R start talking to their NOF and we get caught up in our delightful conversation, first on Stanford basketball, and then broader topics at large. It is very engrossing. So much so that we barely register we are up10-0 due to poor Arizona State shooting in the first four minutes. That and we completely forget to make fun of Arizona State’s head coach Charli Turner Thorne’s high heels.
When the first media time out happens, the contest promoter picks a name out of the raffle bin. It is not C nor R, and this is a good thing, C figures, as she now does not want to win the T-Shirt and wants two chances at the grand prize drawing in the end for the basketball. Sure enough, during the third media time out, C’s name gets picked out of the raffle tin and she has won a shirt! Oh well, a prize is a prize. R still has a shot at the basketball. C asks the contest promoter to throw the shirt at her, as if Stanford has just shot and made a three-pointer. He walks over and gives an unenthusiastic throw about three inches to her hands. Sigh.
C did remember to bring her tinkle bell, and she shakes it when Joslyn Tinkle comes in the game. A knowledgeable fan says you can shake it here legally (see, audience members are not allowed to have artificial noise makers at the game, but our small tinkle bell is hardly a “noise-maker’). Tinkle would get 4 points and attempt one three-pointer but missed. Speaking of three pointers, with the shot clock winding down, Jayne had the ball on the three-point line and had to shoot. It had no chance of going in, and hit off the lip of the rim. I think that makes three attempts at three point shots in her career!
Somehow during our conversation, we look up and it is 29-20 with a few seconds to go in the first half. What happened? We wish we could tell you how or why Stanford went so cold, but we kinda weren’t paying attention, Whoopsies, our bad, but in our defense, we were in a bar. The half time graphics for Jayne Appel said she had 10 rebounds, C swears. Imagine her chagrin when she reads it the paper this morning Jayne as only credited with 8 rebounds. Either the conversation was that good or the adult beverages kicked in. Maybe the scorers went back and decided some of the rebounds weren’t legit. We did see Jayne grab a rebound and then fumble it out of bounds. Does that count as a rebound? Well, at least she is only four away from the record with two games left.
We drift in and out of the second half and Stanford just can’t seem to pull away. In fact, Arizona State gets to within 8 around the 14-minute mark. Then Jayne took over, scoring easily. She would end the game with 19 points and her 8 rebounds. Kayla Pedersen would get 12 points, closely followed by Jeanette Pohlen’s 11. We would win 62-43, a low scoring affair.
With this win, Stanford has won the regular season PAC-10 title and the winner of the autographed ball was not R. Still, it was a fun time out with like-minded Stanford fans. We are looking forward to traveling to Cal (C’s sister-in-law magically dropped off two free tickets to the game) to see Stanford in person.
Get more Stanford Goodies at the original C and R's Stanford Women's Basketball Blog
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