Down 16 at the half, the No. 8 Cal women's basketball team opened the latter stanza on an 8-0 run to cut the lead to 32-24, displaying offensive rhythm unseen in the first half.

What a tease that turned out to be.

Just as the visitors were cutting into its lead, No. 7 Stanford rediscovered its shooting stroke and went on to bury its cross-bay rivals in a 72-52 blowout at Maples Pavilion on Saturday.

After a logjam of a first half during which both teams shot under 40 percent, the Cardinal lit up the Bears from beyond the arc, converting 6-of-8 three's in the second half to cruise for the win.

"We had a little momentum going," forward Ashley Walker said about the opening minutes of the second half. "It's hard, you know, when they punch, you punch back, and then they punch and punch again. They punched twice, and we didn't punch back."

While Stanford went about business as usual with the ball, flirting with 20-point leads down the stretch, Cal (17-3, 8-1 in the Pac-10) failed to establish an inside presence against the Cardinal zone.

Walker and center Devanei Hampton finished with a combined 13 points, the lowest output the pair have managed this season while playing together, and 9 rebounds

Hampton, who posted just three points in a dismal 1-of-8 shooting night, was regularly double-teamed and thus limited of inside touches. The Bears rarely looked comfortable and ended the first half with a season-low 16 points.

"We worked on their sagging-man (defense)," Boyle said. "We knew they were going to play us a sagging-man or zone … I don't think we moved the ball very well, and we were staring our posts down. They weren't open. By the time we decided we were going to take shots, we questioned them."

Stanford (17-3, 7-2) didn't quite rule the paint either, but center Jayne Appel involved others with seven assists while grabbing 15 boards. Senior guard Candice Wiggins kept the Bears at bay dropping 28 points (14-of-14 FT), 15 of which came in the last 9:25 while Cal made its last-ditch efforts on a comeback.

Guard Alexis Gray-Lawson had 12, but the junior appeared more concerned about her performance on the other end of the court.

"I'm a little disappointed in myself," Gray-Lawson said. "I felt like I could've definitely been a better leader on the floor. Candace had 28. I'm very disappointed about that. I was defending her half the game. I'll go back to practice on Monday and work on that."

Other than Wiggins, sophomore JJ Hones, who played just one minute during the Cardinal's stunning 72-57 defeat at home against the Bears on Feb. 4, 2007, made her mark as a spot-up specialist this time around, draining crucial three-pointers in response to Cal's short-lived surge in the second half.

Hones didn't impress in the first half with just three points on a handful of tries, but the off-guard operated efficiently down the stretch, notching 12 points for the evening on 4-of-6 from long range.

"I thought our perimeter shooting was the difference for us this year," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "When they doubled Jayne and Kayla (Pedersen), JJ, Candice and Jeanette (Pohlen) knocked down some shots."

While the Cardinal's top-scorers resided in the backcourt, Boyle implied that its frontline players had just as big an impact, preventing the Bears from playing their usual game inside.

"You look at some of the teams we've played, they have a dominant post and a four player," Boyle said. "But (Stanford has) a six-four and a six-three. They have two legitimate top post players in the country, so we didn't get mismatches. They're big off the double teams, and we didn't get any of those looks because they can just switch on to each other."

Tags: DEVANEI HAMPTON, ASHELEY WALKER, ALEXIS GRAY-LAWSON, JAYNE APPEL