Stanford WBB Secures Win Against Boston College

After Stanford dropped three straight and five of six, the women's basketball program has righted the ship and won two straight, most recently defeating Boston College at Maples Pavilion on Sunday, 80-75. This is the first win streak the Cardinal women have been on since they won three straight back in November.

Despite not hitting a shot from the field over the final 3:44, Stanford was able to come out on top aaginst BC, thanks in part to two huge free throws from Tess Heal, who sealed the game with two seconds remaining.

The win was especially impressive, given that Boston College shot 11-of-23 (47.8%) from distance, including a 6-of-7 performance from redshirt senior Kaylah Ivey. She led her team in scoring with 20 points, a rebound, two assists, and two steals in the game.

Stanford just happened to shoot it better from three, going 11-for-21 (52.4%) while also shooting well from inside the arc, hitting 30-of-58 (51.7%) of their shots as a unit.

As we wrote about after the men's team were throttled by Duke on Saturday, the team that came out ahead just had more depth than their opponent. In this case it was the Cardinal that were able to get contributions from a few different players, which was the difference in the game.

Junior Tess Heal led all scorers with 23 points, which included 8-of-13 from the field and 5-of-9 from three. She ended the game with a +12 plus-minus, along with five rebounds.

Right behind her was senior Brooke Demetre, who scored 21 on 8-of-14 shooting that included going 3-of-4 from distance. This was the second 20+ point game of her career. She also filled up the stat sheet, grabbing eight boards, dishing out two assists, and blocking five shots. Head coach Kate Paye said that her new nickname is "Blocked Shot Brooke" during the postgame press conference.

The Cardinal also saw the return of Nunu Agara and Jzaniya Harriel in this game. Agara had been out since suffering a lower back injury ten days ago against Notre Dame, while Harriel hadn't played much since the calendar flipped to 2025. Her most recent appearance was one minute of game time against Cal back on January 23.

Stanford had 20 assists on its 30 made baskets and has put together two of its three 20-assist performances this season in the past two games. After the game, coach Paye, Heal, and Demetre preached the importance of good team basketball.

"Thursday's win was a big win for us," Demetre said postgame. "Our pace looked a lot better. We were just playing team basketball, and so our big emphasis going into practice afterwards was to build on it. Overall, I think we built on it and translated from Thursday to today."

Stanford's next game will be on Thursday, February 20, on the road against Virginia Tech. Tip-off is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. (PT) from Blacksburg, VA. The game will be available on the ACC Network.