EUGENE, Ore. – Jayne Appel is getting better as she gets more experience with No.9 Stanford.
The freshman center had 18 points and 11 rebounds, Candice Wiggins scored 17 points, and the Cardinal beat Oregon 74-56 Saturday.
Appel nearly recorded a triple-double, also finishing with seven assists. She was coming off a 28-point, 17-rebound game against Oregon State.
“Jayne’s a big force inside,” Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer said. “We go inside to her and she can score against anybody.”
Wiggins played but didn’t start for only the second time in her career last Thursday against the Beavers due to a sprained right ankle. The junior guard showed no ill-effects of that injury against the Ducks (15-11, 7-9 Pacific-10), going 7 for 13 from the field with three three-pointers and eight rebounds.
Brooke Smith had 10 points and nine rebounds for Stanford (23-4, 15-1), which has won four in a row.
“Candice brings, and you can see this as soon as she comes out of the game, the presence that she has is phenomenal,” VanDerveer said. “When she’s out there, she brings such a calming effect to the team and just a confidence. And I think the great ones are the ones that make the other ones around them better and Candice certainly does that.”
Oregon, which beat No.22 Cal by 20 points on Thursday for its fifth win in six games, was led by Eleanor Haring, who had 19 points.
“We played a very good team today and I don’t think we played our best,” Oregon Coach Bev Smith said. “And when those two things collide, it’s going to be a disappointment.”
Haring put the Ducks up 17-14 at the 8:14 mark with the only three-pointer made by either team in the first half. But Oregon scored only four points the rest of the half on 2-of-11 shooting.
Stanford took advantage, going on a 13-2 run to build a 27-19 advantage. Jillian Harmon scored all seven of her first-half points during that stretch.
The Ducks scored the first four points of the second half to get within two at the 17:25 mark. But Stanford answered by scoring seven in a row in less than a minute on a layup by Appel, a three-pointer by Michelle Harrison and a steal and layup by Wiggins to make it 34-25 with 16:12 to play.
“Any time you can get some consecutive baskets, that kind of spurt gives you a lot of momentum and then everyone gets confident,” Wiggins said.