The Stanford Cardinal forward Ziaire Williams (3) defends against the Bakersfield Roadrunners during Mon Dec 21, 2020 game at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz (gostanford.com photo)

By Barbara Mason

Monday night the Stanford Cardinal were looking for a win to add to their three game winning streak as they took on the Bakersfield Roadrunners. The Cardinal are scoring an average of 74.3 points per game while the Roadrunners are close with an average of 72.8 points. Bakersfield expected to lean on Shaun William who is averaging 17 points a game while the Cardinals were looking to Oscar da Silva who comes into this game with a 20.3 average per game. They also have Dejon Davis and Ziaire Willams both double-digit scorers.

A predicted comfortable home victory came to be as the Cardinal dismissed the Roadrunners. The Cardinal are a legitimate Pac 12 contender and they lived up to that in this game. The Roadrunners struggle when they play above average teams and this game proved no different.

The final score was 63-50 as Stanford won both halves. The Cardinals dominated in the first half 30-22 and 33-28 in the second half, a more competitive half for the Roadrunners. Stanford got some nice points from Ziaire Williams with 17, Bryce Wills with 14 and Oscar da Silva with 10. It was a nice game for da Silva although it did break his three game stretch of scoring 20-plus points per game.

Midway through the first half the Cards took the lead for good and never looked back. It was a solid performance by the Stanford Cardinals extending their winning streak to four games.

The Cards are on a roll after beating the Arizona Wildcats Saturday night snapping a 20 game losing steak to the Wildcats in a wild 78-75 win. Stanford will be looking to extend their winning streak to five in their next game. The Cardinals will resume Pac-12 play on December 31 taking on Oregon State in Oregon.