With the Pacific-10 Conference season just one game old, the Cardinal hit the road last weekend to battle USC and UCLA in Southern California.

Returning with two wins, an 82-62 defeat of USC (9-6, 3-1 Pac-10) and a narrow 65-61 victory over UCLA (10-5, 3-1 Pac-10), No. 2/2 Stanford (13-1, 3-0 Pac-10) marked a successful trip early in the year. The wins also move the team to the top of the Pac-10 table, and will give Stanford good memories of Trojan hardwood when it returns to the Galen Center for the Pac-10 Tournament in March.

Friday’s game against USC started perfectly for Stanford, which raced ahead to a 22-4 lead in the first 6 minutes, 42 seconds, and extended this to 30-7 as the competition only made three of its first 17 shots.

With the situation looking perhaps a little desperate, the Trojans rallied together and brought the deficit down to just nine points with 15 minutes left in the game. But that was the closest they got, as the Cardinal responded with four three-pointers and a 14-2 run that effectively sealed the contest.

Having beaten three top-25 teams this year under new head coach Michael Cooper, given the Cardinal a close run for the Pac-10 title last season, and taken their first two matches in the conference, the Trojans looked like tricky opponents for the Friday game. The final result, though, was perhaps a bit of a reality check for Cooper’s young program.

“For us to come back against the No. 2 team in the country and get within nine points was admirable on our part, but it doesn’t do anything for us,” Cooper said. “We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us.”

After expressing disappointment in the performance that recently defeated California, albeit by 21 points, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer was happier with this victory. Both forwards junior Kayla Pedersen and sophomore Nnemkadi Ogwumike made double-doubles in points and rebounds, with senior center Jayne Appel just one rebound shy of joining them. Meanwhile, credit goes to guards senior Rosalyn Gold-Onwude and junior Jeanette Pohlen for keeping the USC backcourt at bay.

“We played much improved since our last game,” VanDerveer said. “We rebounded well, ran well, and I’m really happy with our improvement.”

At the end of the first half of the game on Sunday, many expected another strong victory by the Card against the Bruins. With only 24 seconds until the half-time buzzer, it had opened a 20-point lead, and it looked like the hard work might be done.

But UCLA had other ideas, and started an 11-point unanswered run that continued into the second half. When the clock had ticked down to 1:40, the commanding margin was gone, barely two points separated the two sides and it seemed as if the Bruins just might hand Stanford its second loss of the year.

While the Cardinal had posted almost the same number of points in the first and second halves (31 compared to 34), UCLA had more than doubled its haul (43 to 18). Though it was not enough for a Bruin victory, it is still hard to tell which team will be feeling better after this.

UCLA showed that it can push and perhaps beat one of the highest-ranked programs in the country, but Stanford ultimately took the statistic that mattered: the win.

There were no double-doubles on the Cardinal bench, and the numbers don’t look great in general. The team made 16 turnovers to UCLA’s nine, and the Bruins managed seven steals. Appel fouled out and Ogwumike came close to following her, and though she played for the entire game, Pedersen could only register six points.

Stanford revealed its skill on Friday, but Sunday’s game illustrated that depth remains in this conference — the title is not guaranteed to return to the Farm.

“All I can say is they are not a team to be taken lightly,” Pohlen said. “They are a great physical team and have great individual players.

“We learned today that we have a lot of competition in the Pac-10.”

Two players stand out, though: Ogwumike again notched up over 20 points — 10 of her 21 were scored once she was already resting on four fouls — and Gold-Onwude broke her career record with an 18-point total, including the two free throws that finally put the game out of reach in the last few seconds.

The Cardinal returns to campus this week to face Washington State at Maples on Thursday and Washington on Saturday.