The Stanford women’s basketball team is on its way to the Final Four in San Antonio on Sunday after scraping past Xavier in a 55-53 win in the Sacramento Regional Final.

After 40 minutes of play, there was only one person and one play that could separate the two teams. Junior guard Jeanette Pohlen’s last gasp layup as the clock hit 0.0 won the game for the Cardinal and sent Stanford to its third straight Final Four.

Staying narrowly ahead of the Musketeers (30-4, 14-0 Atlantic-10) for most of the contest, the Card (35-1, 18-0 Pac-10) dropped behind with two minutes still to play. Standout senior center Jayne Appel had fouled out and the team was struggling to deal with the size of its opposition.

When Xavier senior guard Dee Dee Jernigan stole the ball from junior forward Kayla Pedersen with 41 seconds remaining, Stanford had to throw caution to the wind. Redshirt senior guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude fouled Musketeers junior guard Special Jennings, an 84-percent free throw shooter, to send her to the charity stripe. Jennings missed the front end of the ensuing one-and-one and the Cardinal rebounded her miss, allowing Pedersen to hit a jumper and tie the game off an assist from Pohlen.

However, the Musketeers just had to convert on their possession and looked certain to do this when the ball was passed into Jernigan for a simple layup from under the hoop.

She missed, Xavier rebounded and she got the ball again for a wide-open layup. She missed again.

Pedersen grabbed the rebound with seven seconds on the clock, and head coach Tara VanDerveer called a timeout.

With just 4.4 seconds left and the teams tied at 53, the game looked almost certain to go to overtime. But then Pohlen ran the length of the court, straight through the Xavier defense, and released the ball with 0.1 seconds on the clock.

“I think in that situation it was either win it or go to overtime,” VanDerveer said. “At first I thought we’d take a time out, and then I said, ‘No, hell, just give her the ball and go to the basket.’”

The ball fell through the basket. Game over. Stanford won, and for that remarkable final play Pohlen was named Player of the Game.

“I’m really excited for Jeanette,” VanDerveer said. “She just stayed with it and played the whole game and made the big play.”

Pohlen played every minute of the contest, but was only 1-5 on her trademark three-pointers and scored just six points. Her teammates Pedersen and sophomore forward Nnemkadi Ogwumike both recorded double-doubles with 18 points and 10 rebounds, and 16 points and 14 rebounds, respectively. Were it not for that final play, Pedersen would probably have been the most important Stanford player last night.

She looked fired up and time and again put her body on the line, diving to keep balls in or to contest a jump ball. Her teammates looked stationary, though, as the Cardinal was missing its slick, accurate passing and the fluid movement that has characterized it all year.

Through much of the game Xavier managed to beat Stanford in the paint, leading 38-28 in points scored there and frustrating the Cardinal defense. Instead of playing man-to-man, the Card had to put extra players on the Musketeer forwards and Appel struggled to make her presence felt, getting into foul trouble early in the game.

At times, Stanford’s usually strong shooting percentage was well down, and Xavier finished ahead on this statistic 38 percent to 35 percent. What hurt the Musketeers in the second period, though, was going 1-14 on three-points. With the score stuck at 41-40 for three and a half minutes, Xavier lost possession on several attempts from outside the arc and could not make Stanford pay for its own inaccuracy.

The Musketeers may have only been a No. 3 seed, but as the No. 5 team in the nation, they could certainly have argued for a much better seeding. Last night they showed why. Redshirt junior forward Amber Harris led all players with 20 points, and though all three starting forwards were in foul trouble from early on in the second period, they did not let up.

“I just want to congratulate Xavier,” VanDerveer said. “What a great game. You know it’s really hard for either team to lose that game. You know we battled. We did not play well, but we battled.”

After three comfortable victories in the opening rounds, this should come as a wakeup call for the No. 1 seed. Stanford cannot afford to play like that if it hopes to take the crown from undefeated No. 1 Connecticut.

But the most important thing was the win. The Cardinal’s hopes for a third NCAA title are still alive.

“So we’re going to the Final Four,” VanDerveer said, “and I’m very excited.”

Stanford now heads to the Alamodome in San Antonio this Sunday to face the winner of the Kansas City Regional Final, either No. 4 seed Kentucky or No. 3 seed Oklahoma.