People often say that fathers know best, but on Tuesday night, Erica McCall showed that sometimes daughters do.
In Stanford’s second consecutive victory by at least 40 points, McCall led all scorers and recorded her eighth double-double of the season in the Cardinal’s (9-2) 83-41 win over CSU Bakersfield (2-11), a team coached by none other than her own father, Greg McCall.
Yet McCall, who ended the game with 15 points, 10 boards and 4 blocks, wasn’t the only one with a solid day from Stanford: Junior Karlie Samuelson shot 75 percent from 3-point range and scored 13 points overall, while freshman Alanna Smith and sophomore Kaylee Johnson contributed double-digits off the bench to round out a day in which all 14 players saw court time and all but one scored. Tuesday’s game also marked Johnson’s third consecutive game with double-digit points, a promising statistic for the forward.
Junior guard Lili Thompson opened the game with a three, and while Bakersfield would tie it up less than a minute later, Stanford would never lose control of the game after that, going up 18-12 at the end of the first quarter and holding the Roadrunners to only six points in the entire second quarter. That period also featured a 17-0 run that allowed the Cardinal to close the half with a 24-point lead.
From there, Stanford would only increase its lead, holding Bakersfield to a combined 23 points in the second half, including only eight points in the third quarter. Overall, the Roadrunners shot 19 percent, the second game in a row that Stanford held an opponent to shooting less than 25 percent. On the season, the Cardinal have held their opponents to a 31.3 percent field goal percentage, the fourth-best field-goal percentage any defense has allowed in the country.
Despite struggling from beyond the arc, the team shot 51 percent from the field, its best performance on the season, on its way to its fourth 80+ point performance this year. Stanford also controlled the boards 61 to 36 and tallied 12 blocks, good for second-best in program history.
The only area in which Stanford played poorly was in its free throws: The team shot an abysmal 13-of-33 (only 39 percent) from the line, including 9-of-27 in the second half, with freshman Shannon Coffee struggling the most (2-of-10).
The Cardinal will have a bit of a break to relax, celebrate the holiday season and work on their free throws until their next game, which will be on Monday, Dec. 28 at Maples Pavilion against Chattanooga. The broadcast will be available via Stanford Live Stream.
Contact Alexa Philippou at aphil723 ‘at’ stanford.edu.