The second reason to be excited is that Stanford was busy in the off season, scoring the number two recruiting class, including NATIONAL player of the year Haley Jones. She is a local recruit, from nearby Santa Cruz who played at Mitty. This allows her parents to easily get to games at Maples and we met her De-lightful ,with a capital D, mom, Monique Jones. We want to be invited to Thanksgiving and just sit around shooting the breeze with her, she is amazing with great energy (We said we would put her in the blog! Hi Mama Jones). Haley was held out of the first exhibition game of the season as a precaution, but we should see her in action against the next exhibition game vs Team USA (with Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, and our very own Nneka Ogwumike) on Nov 2.
But back to basketball…oh, did we tell you one of the freshies can dunk?
Photo courtesy of Stanford Women's Basketball
Stanford opened with an exhibition over Beijing Normal University, and in warm ups, just as C and R were stowing their coats, Fran dunked, so we missed that one, but many more to come (We hope). Also in the freshmen class is 6-5 forward Ashten Prechtel and Hannah Jump. We are going to need Ashten’s height, as Stanford seems to be a whole lot of speedy guards and forwards and not a lot of tall folk, as Beijing’s large center seemed to score whenever she got the ball near the basket.. Plus, when the announcer says her last name, our ears hear Pretzel, so that is her new nick name from us and we are going to be visiting the soft pretzel stand a lot this season!
Okay, back to the one game they have played, which was an exhibition against Beijing Normal University. The game opened with the two team’s national anthems and an exchange of gifts. It was neat to finds out that one of Stanford’s male practice player stood in as translator between the two teams when they meet before the game.
For the game itself, we are happy to report that five players scored in double figures, with Stanford shooting better than 63 percent in the 100-58 victory.
It was funny, when the game started, junior and returning starter Allyson Jerome was all over attacking the basket and running the fast break. She was lead scorer at the half. Freshie Fran got in the game and had a slow start in the first half, only to come on strong in the second. We were surprised she was high scorer, with 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting. Alyssa Jerome just missed with 16 points but didn't miss any of her seven attempts from the floor. Sophomore Lexie Hull added 14, Ashten had 12 and senior Anna Wilson added 11. It rained threes, with the team hitting 8-of-11 (.727) from 3-point range and the team also made 10 of its 13 free throw attempts (.769) on the night, which was a huge sore point last year.
Looking good, Stanford! Can’t wait for the season to start!
