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		Cal women finish season with a WNIT championship By Morris Phillips April 3, 2010

	On Final Four weekend, only one championship really resonates. But for Cal, the WNIT crown says everything about where their program stands, and where it’s headed. “I thought they took the bull by the horns in postseason and said, ‘You know, we’re going to make the most of it,’” California Coach Joanne Boyle said of her young team, which shook off the disappointment of missing the NCAA tournament with six straight wins in the WNIT. Cal saved its best for last, shooting a season-best 56 percent in a 73-61 win over Miami, giving them their first national championship in women’s basketball. Alexis Gray-Lawson capped off her brilliant college career with 17 points, including several pivotal baskets in the second half. Gray-Lawson exited with 20 seconds left to a standing ovation from an impressive home crowd that made the early 11am tipoff and was loud and supportive of the Bears from the opening tip. One year after posting the best record in the program’s history at 27-7, Boyle’s freshman-dominated team struggled through early January, before finding its stride and finishing with wins in 18 of its final 23 games. Of the five losses, two were to Pac-10 champion Stanford. Nothing better displayed the growth of the young Cal team better than its hot shooting in the second half that allowed them to hold off Miami, who attempted to shot themselves back in it after halftime. The Bears made 16 of their 24 shots and got offense from a number of different sources. The confidence Cal showed on offense was in direct contrast to their final four losses-all to other Pac-10 post-season qualifiers—in which they shot a combined 29 percent, including a clunker of a half against UCLA on February 6, in which they made just 2 of 23 shots. Repeatedly, Cal was patient with their offense, and comfortable putting up shots with the shot clock running down. Gray Lawson pumped faked and scored on a deep jumper from the corner, and drew a foul on Miami’s Riquna Williams with the shot clock evaporating. That basket and the ensuing made free throw put Cal up 48-35 with 13:08 remaining. “The points they scored with less than 10 seconds in the shot clock—that’s the most I’ve ever recalled in a game in the history of my coaching career that a team ran it down and we’re scrambling, pressing and running, and they had the composure to run it down and score,” Miami Coach Katie Meier said. “Big time players make big plays at the end of games, and the end of shot clocks. That’s Lex, and nothing we diagram. Believe me,” Boyle added. Freshman standout DeNesha Stallworth, still only 17 years old, after her lengthy freshman season at Cal, led the Bears with 21 points, and also showed a knack for knocking down big shots under the pressure of the shot clock. Meier felt her undersized Hurricanes were in position to contest Stallworth’s shots, but she was often too quick, shooting before the defense could react. Fellow freshman Eliza Pierre and Gennifer Brandon also had big games as Cal got 21 of their 29 made baskets from the five freshmen that played. Brandon also grabbed 12 rebounds as the Bears outboarded Miami 39-31. In Cal’s run to the WNIT championship, they won their final five games all by double-digits and grabbed an incredible 93 more rebounds than their opponents in the six-game run, as their size and physical ability mattered far more than their lack of experience. The smaller Hurricanes came in averaging 75 points a game in their WNIT run, but managed only 23 in the first half as Cal’s length bothered the Miami shooters. Still the Hurricanes, who finished tied for 10th in the Atlantic Coast Conference at 4-10, concluded their most successful season ever with a spirited rally, coming within nine points, down 66-57, with 3:38 remaining. But Cal held on as Stallworth and senior Natasha Vital hit big baskets down the stretch. Now Cal welcomes its’ second consecutive top-ten recruiting class in hopes of challenging Stanford for supremacy in the Pac-10, and in trying to return to the NCAA’s after missing the tournament for the first time in five years. Not bad for a school that had little significant women’s basketball history just six years ago when Boyle arrived. Miami returns sophomores Shenise Johnson and Williams, along with freshman Stefanie Yderstrom in hopes of moving into the upper division in the ultra competive ACC. The trio of young Miami players combined to score 47 of their 61 points on Saturday.