Cal Women End Their 12-Game Losing Streak to Stanford

The Golden Bears record their largest margin of victory over Stanford in nearly 43 years

Kayla Williams / Photo by Robert Edwards, KLC fotos

Cal emphatically ended its 12-game losing streak to Stanford by beating its archrival 83-63 on Friday night at Haas Pavilion in the opening ACC women’s basketball game of the season for both teams.

Let's count the ways in which this Cal win over Stanford was so significant.

---The Bears' last win against the Cardinal was an 81-80 victory on Jan. 31, 2019.

---The 20-point margin represented Cal's biggest win over Stanford in nearly 43 years, since the Bears beat the Cardinal by 31 points, a 96-65 victory, on February 9, 1982.

---Cal attempted 40 three-point shots. That's right, 40, which was eight more than the 32 two-point shots the Bears attempted. And Cal made a school-record 18 of those three-pointers, accounting for 54 of Cal's 83 points. Four Cal players made at least three three-pointers. A three-point barrage early in the third quarter blew the game open.

"Obviously, the rim got real big for them," said Stanford coach Kate Paye.

---It was Cal coach Charmin Smith's first victory over her alma mater, and she did not hide the fact that it was a big deal for her.

"Yes, it meas a lot," she said. "I'd be lying if I tried to downplay it. . . . I don't care. I'm happy we beat Stanford and I'm going to act like it."

After the game, she led the crowd of 3,189 in the Cal victory chant. You know, the one that goes. "You can tell the whole damn word this is Bear territory."

"I'm not wasting the moment," she said.

Cal is now 10-1, which is its best start to a season since the Bears started 13-1 during the 2016-17 season. And this win was so convincing that Cal may find itself ranked when the AP poll comes out on Monday.

This one was over early in the fourth quarter. Cal led by as many as 27 points with 7:30 remaining, and the Cardinal made it a little closer at the end when the Bears got a little sloppy

"We were having fun the entire game," said Cal forward Marta Suarez.

It was a different feeling for Stanford, which was limited to its lowest scoring output of the season and is still without starting point guard Talana Lepolo, who is out with an injury.

"This was a painful experience," Paye said.

Suarez scored 21 points for Cal, and Lulu Twidale added 20 points while hitting 6-of-11 three-point shots. Ioanna Krimili scored 20 points.

Brooke Demetre led Stanford (7-3) with 18 points.

Turnovers have been a problem for Cal all season, but the Bears turned the ball over just nine times on Friday, with five of those coming in the fourth quarter when the outcome had been decided. And there's the three-pointers, which have been a major part of Cal's offense all season.

Cal led by nine points at halftime, but two three-pointers by Twidale and another three-pointer by Suarez helped push the Golden Bears' lead to 18 points with 7:40 left in the third quarter. Two more three-point shots by Krimili made it a 22-point Cal advantage at 50-28 at the 7:00 mark of the third quarter.

Cal made five of its first six three-point shots of the second half, and the Bears took a 23-point lead into the fourth quarter when Suarez made a 40-foot three-pointer at the third-quarter buzzer. The lead ballooned to 27 points early in the fourth quarter.

Neither team shot well in the first half, which ended with Cal holding nine-point lead at 33-24.

Stanford entered the game ranked eighth in the country in field-goal percentage at 50.1%, but the Cardinal made only 26.7% of its shots in the first half.  And Stanford had to have an offensive surge in the final two minutes of the half to shoot that well.

Cal wasn’t much better, hitting 33.3% of its first-half shots, but a flurry of three-pointers toward the end of the half enabled the Bears to take a 13-point lead with 2:19 remaining before halftime.

The Bears made up for their poor shooting by committing just two turnovers in the first 20 minutes.  Cal began the day averaging 18 turnovers a game

Twidale scored 11 points in the first, with all 11 coming in the second quarter.

NOTES: Cal head coach Charmin Smith and Stanford head coach Kate Paye were teammates for two years at Stanford, playing on the same Cardinal squad in 1993-94 and 1994-95. Stanford reached the Final Four in 1995.

Stanford entered the game second in the nation in 3-point percentage (42.0%), and the Cardinal’s  Jzaniya Harriel was sixth in the country in 3-point percentage (52.8%). Stanford began the day eighth nationally in field goal percentage (50.1%) .

Stanford’s 12-game winning streak against Cal entering the day was its longest since beating Cal 14 consecutive times from Jan. 30, 2002 through Jan. 6, 2007.

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