Jayne Appel sits, but Stanford women still defeat Cal

Stanford senior center Jayne Appel sat at the end of the bench at Haas Pavilion on Saturday, a protective boot covering her right foot.

One of the country’s marquee players had to sit out the regular-season finale against Cal because of a sprained ankle suffered Tuesday in practice during a layup drill. Appel couldn’t play for the first time since her first game at Stanford. She had appeared in 138 consecutive games despite shoulder and knee injuries throughout her career.

But coach Tara VanDerveer wasn’t about to risk her star center just before the NCAA tournament — even against Stanford’s Bay Area rival.

It turned out she didn’t need to against a Cal team that starts four freshmen as second-ranked Stanford took a hard-fought 63-48 victory to complete its first undefeated Pacific-10 Conference season since 2002 and fifth since 1989.

The Cardinal (28-1, 18-0 Pac-10) hopes the 6-foot-4 Appel returns Friday for the quarterfinals of the league tournament in Los Angeles, where fourth-seeded Cal will face No. 5 Arizona State. Stanford will play Arizona or Washington State in the quarterfinals.

While the Bears hope to win enough games next weekend to earn an NCAA tournament berth, Stanford must get its players healthy to make another run at reaching the Final Four.

“If this was an NCAA game, she could have hobbled,” VanDerveer said of Appel. “I just couldn’t risk her. I am going to wait and see.”

Appel’s goal is to play in the Pac-10 tournament. But she wasn’t needed Saturday as forwards Kayla Pedersen had 23 points and 10 rebounds and Nneka Ogwumike added 22 points and 14 rebounds in front of an announced crowd of 5,137.

“You knew their two best players would take over,” Bears coach Joanne Boyle said. “We tried to pressure as much as we could … and not give them things easy. When push came to shove they went to their bigs.”

Stanford won its 19th in a row since losing to top-ranked Connecticut on Dec. 23. VanDerveer was buoyed by the progress of freshman Joslyn Tinkle, who replaced Appel in the starting lineup. She made the Cardinal’s only two 3-point baskets as the team went 2 for 13. Tinkle had eight points and nine rebounds and played an important role on a defense that limited Cal to 28.1 percent from the field.

Senior guard Alexis Gray-Lawson scored 15 points for Cal (17-12, 11-7 Pac-10), which has improved greatly since the beginning of the season. Forward DeNesha Stallworth added 12 points and 13 rebounds.

“We’re not together as a team,” said Gray-Lawson, who probably played her final game at Haas. “The desire was there, the heart was there and the passion was there. But you’ve got to bring more than that. You’ve got to bring more poise and control.”

Boyle became teary eyed speaking about Gray-Lawson, one of players who helped build Cal into a national power.

“You come to one last game, you want it,” the coach said. “Sometimes it’s not meant to be. It doesn’t define them. They were working hard. But they were working so slow, so methodical. Where’s the flow?”

While stretching before the game, Ogwumike and Pedersen made a pact because Appel, the Pac-10’s all-time leading rebounder, was out.

“We talked about how we needed to take over the game,” Ogwumike said.