By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Rachel Allison was a woman possessed.

As a result, Baylor was able to gain possession of some sweet payback.

With Allison blazing a net-scorching trail, the 19th-ranked Lady Bears played with a near-rabid intensity in exacting revenge on Stanford, upending the second-ranked Cardinal, 81-65, in front of a crowd of 7,136 Sunday afternoon at the Ferrell Center.

Stanford (1-1) became the highest-ranked victim Baylor had ever slain in the regular season. But perhaps just as satisfying for the Lady Bears (2-0) was erasing the memories of last year’s 87-63 loss to the Cardinal in Palo Alto, Calif.

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Lady Bears topple #2 Stanford at the Ferrell Center in Waco

Sophia Young hugs Lady Bears head coach Kim Mulkey at a halftime ceremony to retire her #33. The 2005 NCAA basketball tournament's Most Outstanding Player, now a WNBA All-Star, is the all-time leading scorer for the Lady Bears and led Baylor to the 2005 national title.

“Going up there and having that kind of loss, it hurt our hearts,” Allison said. “And I think it was good that we had so many returners back that know what that felt like. I think we just played off emotion today.”

“They were on a mission today,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “They didn’t like what happened to them last year. We blasted them last year at our place, and payback was evident. They came out fired up and got after it.”

No one came out more motivated than Allison. Displaying a quick-trigger, catch-and-shoot mentality, the senior forward couldn’t miss in the early going, scoring 17 of Baylor’s first 21 points.

At that stage, Stanford as a team had outscored Allison by only one.

“For us post players, we want the ball always, even when we’re not open,” Allison said. “That’s going to be my mentality for the whole season. Just give me the ball and I’ll do what I can and try and score for us.”

“I was tired of watching us get torn up by Rachel Allison,” VanDerveer said. “That made me tired. I just thought she had a great game.”

Despite Allison burying jump shots from all over the court, the Lady Bears weren’t able to bury the Cardinal in the first half. Baylor led by as many as seven points after a 16-footer from Morghan Medlock with 4:51 left, but Stanford pulled to within a point at 36-35 by the half behind the outside shooting of sophomore guard Jeanette Pohlen, who scored a team-high 14 points.

“To finish the first half, we definitely had a run going,” Pohlen said. “I felt like we had momentum, and I was pretty excited about it. But coming out in the second half, Baylor came out just as hard and took it to us.”

Baylor certainly didn’t lose any of its sizzle after halftime. If anything, the fire from Allison’s red-hot first-half shooting began to spread.

Senior guard Jhasmin Player began to help the Lady Bears inch away, scoring six straight points about seven minutes into the second half, on a whirlybird floater in the lane, a step-back jumper and a layup on the break.

When Player corralled a loose ball and sprinted past a pair of Stanford defenders for an and-one layup with 8:37 left, Baylor’s lead reached double digits at 60-49.

Stanford would never trim the gap under 10 again.

“Jhas has done that throughout her career here,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said of Player, who scored all but two of her 14 points in the second half. “I’ll never forget the Missouri game when were down nine, and she hit three 3-pointers in a row. We ran a couple of isolation plays for her, and she was able to score.”

Baylor’s post defense also stepped up large, led by junior Danielle Wilson, who blocked six shots to go with her 12 points and nine rebounds. Wilson and her cohorts in the paint frustrated Stanford’s 6-4 frontcourt tandem of Jayne Appel and Kayla Pedersen into 5-for-17 shooting. Pedersen and freshman post Nnemkadi Ogwumike, a former Cy-Fair prep star who was heavily recruited by Baylor, both fouled out.

“Danielle set the tone for us in that second half,” Player said. “When you have someone that’s got her hands up and altering shots and tipping stuff and getting rebounds, it makes everybody else want to play harder.”

Other heroes for Baylor included Melissa Jones, who did a little of everything with 10 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three steals, and Kelli Griffin, who hit all eight of her free throws in the final minutes when Stanford entered must-foul mode, finishing with 13 points.

In the waning moments of the game, Mulkey took turns hugging each of her starters as she sent in substitutes, congratulating each on the win.

It was a well-earned victory worthy of celebration, one that will likely send Baylor skyrocketing in the national polls. But Mulkey said the party would be short-lived.

“It allows us to know that we can compete with teams across the country, and it allows us to take a day off tomorrow,” she said. “We will enjoy the victory just for a short period of time and then go back to work.”

Baylor’s next game is home against Stephen F. Austin at 7 p.m. Friday.

bcherry@wacotrib.com

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