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Stanford clinches at least a share of Pac-10 title

Feb 21, 2010 - 6:13 AM STANFORD, Calif.(AP) -- On a night she made her final regular season appearance at Maples Pavilion, Jayne Appel fittingly cemented her place in Stanford's record books.

Now she wants to take the second-ranked Cardinal deep into the postseason.

Appel became only the third player in program history to reach 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in her career while leading No. 2 Stanford to an 82-48 win over Oregon State on Saturday night.

"It's a tremendous honor but I want a national championship," said Appel, who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds. "Coming in to the game I had the mentality of just win the game first because it really wouldn't have been a celebration if we had lost."

The Cardinal (25-1, 15-0 Pac-10) clinched at least a share of their 10th straight conference title while extending their home winning streak to 44 games, the second-longest in school history.

They did it behind another stellar effort from Appel and Nnemkadi Ogwumike, who scored 17 points, including eight straight as part of Stanford's game-opening 13-1 run.

"We're playing our best when it counts," Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer said. "I think we can go a long way. We kind of hit a little bit of a lull through January but we've really picked it up in February. Obviously the best time to play your best is in March."

Jeanette Pohlen added 13 points and five assists for Stanford, which has won 16 straight since losing to top-ranked Connecticut 80-68 on Dec. 23.

The Cardinal can clinch the Pac-10 regular season title outright by winning just one of their final three games. Stanford plays at Arizona State and Arizona next week, then closes out with a road game against California on March 6.

Appel scored on a short layup with 8:48 remaining in the first half to go over the 2,000-point mark in her career, joining Nicole Powell and Val Whiting.

She's also just 13 boards short of breaking Lisa Leslie's Pac-10 career rebounding record, though she didn't show much emotion until walking to midcourt with her parents as part of a post-game ceremony honoring Stanford's seniors.

"I kind of learned that my freshman year," Appel said. "That was the last year we did (the ceremony) before the game and I was a disaster. So my mindset was 'OK, get through this, then you can have fun.'"

Haiden Palmer scored 16 points for Oregon State (9-16, 1-13), which has lost its 14th straight. Beavers Oregon State coach LaVonda Wagner said. "My main thing was our defensive pressure wasn't there and we got beat on the boards. Those are things we've been good at."

The Cardinal opened a 25-point advantage at halftime and increased it to as much as 29 midway through the second half when Ogwumike scored on a quick layup to make it 65-36.

Oregon State, which was coming off a 66-62 loss to California on Thursday, couldn't keep up. The Beavers shot just 26.7 percent from the floor in the first half and were only slightly better after the break.

Haiden, the only freshman starter for Oregon State, went 7 of 15 from the floor and reached double figures for the 14th time this season.