Coming off a ten-day break for finals following a 60-55 road loss at South Dakota State, the Colonials faced another tough task hosting No. 14 Stanford – the country’s third winningest road program in the last ten seasons.
Women’s basketball (7-5) could not overcome a 22-point halftime deficit and dropped its third consecutive game Wednesday night, losing to the Cardinal (9-2), 71-52.
There were three early lead changes in a sloppy first quarter that saw both teams shoot a combined 7-of-33 from the field.
Leading by just one heading into the first quarter, the Cardinal broke the game open with 30 second-quarter points, its most in any period this season, on 11-of-15 (.733) shooting. The Cardinal also held a 14-2 advantage in points in the paint while holding GW to just 19 percent shooting from the field in the quarter.
Trailing 41–19 at half, the Colonials came out of the locker room strong, keeping Stanford scoreless through the first three minutes of the third quarter while going on a 7-0 run of their own to cut the Stanford lead to 15.
Led by three steals from senior guard Hannah Schaible, GW forced seven turnovers in the period and scored ten points off turnovers to cut minimize the deficit to just 12.
“What we hope out of this stretch of tough non-conference games is that it prepares us to work a little bit harder and understand some of our flaws and be determined to continue to get better,” head coach Jennifer Rizzotti said.
“This group has been really good about that so far every time we’ve talked about it, so I’m excited to just move forward and make sure we look a lot more like that third quarter team heading into Friday’s game.”
Stanford was led by junior guard Brittany McPhee, who scored 21 points to go along with five rebounds, three assists, and 2 blocks.
The Cardinal’s leading scorer, Erica McCall, spun and hit a jumper off glass in the second period to become Stanford’s 37th all-time 1,000-point scorer. The senior forward finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds to notch her fifth double-double of the season and 25th double-double of her career.
Although GW whittled the lead down to 58-50 with just under six minutes remaining in the period, it was too-little, too-late for the home team. Graduate transfer Lexi Martins committed a costly travel with five minutes to play and McCall converted a three-point play on the other end.
The Cardinal never looked back, finishing the game on a 17-2 run to put away the Colonials for good.
The Colonials’ strong second-half effort that fell short was spearheaded by an eight-point, eight-rebound second-half performance by leading scorer Caira Washington. The senior center, who leads the Colonials with 12.6 points and 7.5 rebounds per game this season, posted her third double-double of the season with 10 points and a season-high 13 rebounds, holding her own against one of best post players in the nation in McCall.
“I think they’re the best team we played… Erica McCall is the toughest post player we’ve played this year, and we did an excellent job on her,” Rizzotti said. “Her and Caira were kind of a wash in terms of their performance tonight in terms of rebounding and scoring.”
Senior guard Hannah Schaible collected a season-high 14 rebounds of her own – including 11 offensive boards – but finished just 1-for-11 from the field. The Colonials were outscored in the paint 32-18, missing easy layups while allowing the Cardinal to penetrate the paint and draw fouls, capitalizing on multiple and-one opportunities.
“I had a lot of open looks that I just missed – a lot of really short looks that I missed – and I just wasn’t connecting tonight, so I just tried to do something else and rebound a lot which was successful,” Schaible said. “But I’ve got to get in and make sure I hit those short bunnies that, as coach said, we missed a lot during the game.”
The Colonials have a quick turnaround, and will host Loyola (Md.) in their non-conference finale at noon on Friday.
