STANFORD-It has been a long time coming for the No. 10 Cal women's basketball team.

The Bears have finally broken their first-round curse. After going one-and-done in the first round of the NCAA Tournament the last two years, No. 3-seed Cal secured a 77-60 win over No. 14-seed San Diego on Saturday at Maples Pavilion to advance to the second round for the first time since 1993.

The Bears will now play No. 6-seed George Washington on Monday for a trip to the Sweet 16 and Greensboro, N.C.

"It's our first Tournament win," Cal coach Joanne Boyle said. "It kind of takes some of the punch out of it. We were relaxed and we were ready to go forward and look forward and get that first Tournament win."

Ashley Walker proved to be the difference for Cal (27-6).

Walker scored 21 points and pulled down a team-high 12 rebounds as she was the focal point of the Bears' offense all game. She also had six assists and a game-high eight offensive rebounds.

Walker-who hit her first five shots and had a double-double midway through the first half-scored her final bucket with just over eight minutes left to play. The layup gave Cal its largest lead of the game-a 22-point advantage at 65-43.

But it wasn't just Walker who was able to run roughshod over the Toreros' interior defense. Fellow center Devanei Hampton scored a game-high 22 points as San Diego's zone defense was unable to prevent either Hampton or Walker from getting to the basket.

"We work on it every day in practice," Hampton said. "We just love the contact and we just love the game. Whenever their defense is doubling us, we just have to make the adjustments. That's what we practice."

The Bears jumped out to a 12-2 lead at the beginning of the game as the Toreros-champions of the West Coast Conference tournament-committed three turnovers and missed three of their first four shot attempts in the first four minutes of the game.

That set the tone for the rest of the game as San Diego (19-13) never held a lead. The closest that the Toreros came was within four points of Cal, when it was 18-14 with just over 12 minutes left in the first half.

"We've been sitting around, waiting for about 10 days just to play a game," Boyle said. "It's good to get off to a fresh start and just relax a little bit. We were all a little bit nervous just to try to get the game started. It settled us down a little bit."

The Bears held San Diego's leading scorer Amber Sprague to just six points on 3-of-10 shooting from the floor.

The center came into Saturday's contest averaging 15.5 per game but was stifled by both Hampton and Walker down low.

"(Sprague) is a very good player. She's very athletic," Walker said. "We knew we had to do a really good job with her on the perimeter. We tried to get her more on the block so that she could battle with us."

Cal will now face the Colonials on Monday at Maples Pavilion. George Washington (26-6) defeated No. 11-seed Auburn in the first game Saturday.

The Bears may be without reserve center Rama N'diaye for Monday's game. N'diaye injured her right knee when she dove for a loose ball late in the second half. Boyle said that N'diaye will undergo an MRI on Monday.

Tags: NCAA TOURNAMENT, SAN DIEGO, GEORGE WASHINGTON