March 20, 2004
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TEMPE, Ariz. - All-American Nicole Powell led four Stanford players in double figures to lead the No. 6-seeded Cardinal to a 68-44 win over 11th-seeded Missouri Saturday night in the first round of the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship Midwest Region at Wells Fargo Arena. Stanford (25-6) will advance to face No. 3 seed Oklahoma, a 58-45 winner over No. 14 seed Marist in the night's first game.
Senior forward Stretch James (Columbus, Ohio / Northland HS / Tyler [Texas] JC) led the Tigers, who end their season at 17-13, with 20 points and five blocks to set the single-season school record in that category. senior All-America candidate Evan Unrau (Fort Collins, Colo. / Rocky Mountain HS) finished her career with another double-double - her 15th of the season - with a 10-point, 10-rebound effort. She added three assists.
Stanford held the Tigers to season lows in points and field-goal shooting (18-of-58, 31 percent), bettering the marks that Kansas set at Hearnes on Jan. 10.
"I would like to wish Stanford the best of luck and I thought they played real well tonight," Missouri Head Coach Cindy Stein said. "The key to the game was lack of offensive execution. We just could not make the shots and it was very frustrating all night. I thought we had some great looks at the basket but could not knock them down and sometimes that's how it goes."
Playing in its first game in 10 days, Mizzou spotted a 5-0 lead before Unrau had 3-point plays on back-to-back possessions - the first conventional, and the second from long range - to give the Tigers a 6-5 lead with 17 minutes, 21 seconds left in the first half.
Senior guard MyEsha Perkins (Detroit, Mich. / Oak Park HS / Trinity Valley [Texas] JC) hit a 3-pointer the next time down to tie the score at 9, and James hit a jumper before the No. 10-ranked Cardinal started to break away. Stanford held a four-point lead (19-15) at the under-12-minute timeout, and extended that lead to 11 with 3:13 left. The Cardinal took that same 11-point lead into the locker room (35-24).
The Cardinal opened the second half with a 14-2 run to stretch its lead to 49-26. Missouri countered with a quick 7-2 run, yet Stanford put the Tigers away with a 17-6 run to make it a 68-39 game with 4:12 left.
James tied Amanda Lassiter's single-season school record with her 69th block of the year with 3-1/2 minutes to go, and broke it with 51 seconds left. She added another the next time down the floor to finish the season with 71. Lassiter set the mark in 2000.