No. 1 seed Stanford hold on to beat No. 4 seed Maryland 72-66 to reach Elite 8 in Hull sisters’ Spokane homecoming

It’s been four years since Lexie Hull played in the Spokane Arena, but she found her comfort zone from the opening tip Friday night.

So did her teammates from defending NCAA champion Stanford, which dominated Maryland for three quarters and held on for a 72-66 win in the Sweet 16 and a spot in the Elite Eight.

“We were really excited to play today,” said Hull, who scored 19 points and even found time to autograph some basketballs after the game.

“I felt like we had a lot of people cheering for us,” said Hull, a star at Central Valley High School with her twin sister Lacie. “I think that excitement is going to carry on to Sunday’s game.”

That will be against Texas, which beat Ohio State 66-63 in the first of two games that drew 7,142 fans to the Arena.

Stanford (31-3) showed few weaknesses, crushing the Terrapins on the boards and in the paint while stifling their fastbreak before it could begin.

It also held Maryland (23-9) to one of its worst shooting nights of the year: 34% from the field and 16% from beyond the arc.

Stanford led 39-23 at halftime after holding Maryland to eight field goals on 30 shots and dominating on the boards 26-11.

“We really wanted to focus on rebounding because (Maryland) is an excellent rebounding team,” VanDerveer said.

The lead grew to 26 points late in the third quarter and to 59-36 by the start of the fourth.

At that point, the Cardinal let up, giving up 30 points in the final minutes. Maryland cut the lead to 67-57 with 2:40 left but never got closer than the final margin.

“I thought we had three very good quarters, and I’m glad the game is only four quarters,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “We have a lot of work to do between now and Sunday.”

Stanford dominated early, getting a pair of 3-pointers from All-American Haley Jones while Maryland missed nine of its first 12 shots. Despite that, the Cardinal led just 12-8 midway through the first quarter.

A few moments later, Stanford forward Francesca Belibi stole a pass and went the other way. A week ago in a first-round win over Montana State, Belibi made headlines with a coast-to-coast slam dunk.

As the crowd roared, Belibi seemed ready to repeat the feat, but at the last second settled for a layin that made it 16-8.

But that seemed to spark the Cardinal, who led 22-10 after the first quarter. The stat sheet indicated that it should have been even more lopsided: Stanford made 10 of its 14 shots in the quarter while Maryland was 3 for 16.

Stanford missed nine of its first 10 shots in the second quarter, but Maryland couldn’t close the gap. Instead, the advantage widened to 13 when Lexie Hull found Lacie for a 3-pointer late in the half

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Stanford’s Cameron Brink finished with 15 points and eight rebounds but played only 19 minutes and fouled out in the third quarter.

As she often does, Jones filled the stat sheet: 17 points, six assists and a game-high 10 boards.

“We did a good job of feeding that hot hand,” Jones said.

Maryland got a game-high 25 points from Angel Reese, but 12 of those came at the foul line. Reese also had a team-high nine boards.