The California women managed to overcome conference rival Arizona and all the adversity that came with a pandemic season.
BY MIGUEL ENRUEZ
In sports, the stories of the little teams that come from behind are always attractive. On this occasion it was Stanford University's turn, who managed to lift the title of women's basketball champions in the NCAA after beating Arizona by 54-53 in the Final Four final last Sunday.
The champions managed to end the malaria that was affecting the institution, as they had not won the valuable crown of monarchs for 29 years and after playing this season for 10 weeks away from home due to the blow represented by the Covid-19 pandemic in California.
The big star of the night was Haley Jones, player who scored 17 points in the game against Arizona at the Alamodome, the home stadium of the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA where all the finals of the category were played. The end of the match had shades of drama when Stanford had a nine-point lead and were caught on the scoreboard by star point guard Aari McDonald, who scored from the three-point line and brought the game within one point.
Sunday's game had the distinction of bringing together the rivals from the Pac-12 conference for the first time in the history of a Final Four, in addition to crowning coach Tara VenDerveer for the third time, who had already been crowned in 1990 and 1992.but this is the first one with the Cardinal.
The 67-year-old coach will go down in history as one of the best in her field, just like Baylor's Kim Mulkey did, like those who have taken home the title three times, but a great distinction for the Stanford coach is that No one has managed to win a championship with the institution in 29 years or with the record of 31 victories and two defeats.
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