Stanford women's basketball narrowly escapes UTSA

It was a good day at the office for the Stanford Cardinal. In front of a 4,600 person crowd, the Stanford Cardinal (8-3) picked up a big win over UTSA behind a dominant game from Elena Bosgana, going home with the 62-57 victory at Maples Pavilion.

Recording her first career double-double, scoring 13 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, the Cardinal held on despite a late push from the Roadrunners. Leading only 58-57 with :13 seconds remaining, and with UTSA still well within reach, Bosgana hit both of her free throws after getting fouled to give Stanford a three point lead.

After using its final timeout, UTSA inbounded the ball but it was quickly intercepted by Jzaniya Harriel, who was able to score another two points as the clock hit zero. Overall for the day, Harriel scored 12 points with three shots coming from behind the arc. For the season, she is now an even 50% from three point range, having gone 22-for-44.

The game started off close, with Stanford only leading 14-11 by the time the first quarter ended. However, the Cardinal were soon able to get out to their first double digit lead of the game when they started off the second quarter on a 9-0 run, thanks in large part to the strong three point shooting from Brooke Demetre, Tess Heal and Harriel.

However, the three-point shooting as a whole was not as strong as it normally is for Stanford, the top three-point shooting program in the nation, as for the game, it only shot 33.3%, going 8-for-24 from behind the arc.

At one point in the fourth quarter, the Cardinal were up 57-42, but after a dominant 15-2 run by the Roadrunners over the span of about five minutes made it a whole new ballgame. During the run, the Cardinal struggled offensively, turning over the ball three times and missing four shots.

The Roadrunners led only once in the game, taking a 28-26 lead early in the third quarter, but luckily for the Cardinal, Demetre scored a three the very next possession to put them back up by one point.

Demetre once again impressed all day long, ending the game with 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and three blocks before she ultimately fouled out. Other notables for the Cardinal also include Nunu Agara, who had nine points and seven rebounds.

With only one more non-conference game left, the Cardinal will close out that portion of their schedule when they play No. 11 Ohio State in the Invisalign Bay Area Women’s Classic on Friday, Dec. 20. The game will take place at Chase Center in San Francisco and will begin at 5:30 p.m. (PT), with all the action airing live on FS1.