Appel finds staying power

On the first day of practice, Stanford sophomore Jayne Appel found a note taped to her locker.

For her it was the most important commandment for this season.

“Thou shalt not foul.”

Appel fouled out four times in a freshman season that saw her average 19.3 minutes as the first center off the bench. She would have played more had she not found herself in frequent foul trouble.

She led the team in fouls, a statistic she wasn’t overjoyed about. It’s a testament to her talent, though, that she was able to average 13.2 points, third-best on the team, to go with 7.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocked shots despite being handicapped by foul trouble.

“It is still taped to my locker,” Appel said Sunday afternoon just before her team practiced at the Arena in preparation for an Elite Eight showdown with No. 1-seeded Maryland tonight.

In one game last year, Appel fouled out in 12 minutes.

Assistant coach Amy Tucker affixed the note to Appel’s locker.

She has more fouls this year, but her minutes played as a starter has increased to more than 28. Most importantly, she has fouled out just once.

“This year, I had a much bigger role and I needed to learn to stay in the game because my team needs me to do that,” the 6-foot-4 Appel said.

She’s learned that sometimes it’s in the best interest of the team to yield rather than contest.

“It was just kind of learning that some points are better to give up than try to block (the shot),” she said.

The way Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer sees it, Appel could blossom into the Cardinal’s next All-American after John Wooden Award candidate Candice Wiggins, a senior, leaves. VanDerveer tabbed her as the “franchise” when she arrived in Palo Alto.

“We need that inside presence – the big that can move some people out, can score on the block, that passes as well as she passes,” VanDerveer said of the sturdy and agile Appel. “We’re really fortunate to have Jayne because we can build a team around her. As much as we’re going to miss Candice next year … to have Jayne as a foundation of your team is a great starting point. She’s in a lot of ways the rock to our team.”

Appel, a native of Concord, Calif., scores 15.1 points per game, second most on the team, and leads the Cardinal in rebounding (8.9). She broke the single-season school record for blocks in a season last year (61), and has already shattered it this season (83). She should easily obliterate the career mark (196).

She was the Pac-10 Conference Freshman of the Year and was named to the all-conference first team this year.

Through three games in the NCAA tournament, Appel is averaging a team-leading 25 points, 10 rebounds (second) and 5.3 blocks (first). She’s shooting a team-best 68 percent (30 of 44).

“We do run our offense through Jayne,” VanDerveer said. “We come down and look for Jayne before we take other perimeter shots.”

The humble Appel puts no stock in any of her statistics.

“I take the most pride in attitude on the court,” she said. “I like filling the spark plug role.”

Her teammates say she’s already made an imprint on the Cardinal.

“I’m not surprised at all with her success,” Wiggins said. “People are going to know who she is. I’ve played with Courtney Paris (Oklahoma), one of the best centers in the nation. She’s Courtney Parisesque in terms of her ability to dominate inside. You can’t really match up with her. You have to try to contain her because you’re not going to be able to stop her.”

Appel’s game also has flourished because of 6-4 freshman Kayla Pedersen, who starts and gives Stanford a high-low tandem that’s difficult to stop.

“Going against her every day in practice has really helped me,” Pedersen said. “We complement each other with our versatility.”

With her 84-inch wingspan, Appel takes up a lot of space in the key and alters more shots than she touches.

Stanford has won 21 straight since back-to-back defeats at UCLA and Southern California in early January.

Appel thinks the losses were a blessing in disguise.

“(They) were the best thing that could have happened to us,” she said.Appel immediately watched video following the losses. She discovered she was allowing herself to get pushed out farther from the basket than she should and was forcing shots instead of kicking the ball out to open perimeter players.

She hasn’t been the same player since. And the Cardinal hasn’t been the same team.