Stanford Surges Past USC : Women’s basketball: The Cardinal takes advantage of Leslie’s foul trouble to pull away to a 76-67 victory.

Stanford’s women’s basketball team, upset at USC on Monday, beat the Trojans before a sellout Maples Pavilion crowd, 76-67, on Saturday night and took over first place in the Pacific 10 Conference.

The Cardinal (14-3, 5-1 in the Pac-10), defending national champion and ranked No. 3 nationally, didn’t have a field goal during the first six minutes, trailed by 12-2 and did not lead for the first time until only 11:19 was left to play.

The Cardinal took its first lead, 50-49, on a basket by Val Whiting with 9:07 to play, exciting the crowd--finally.

Cardinal Coach Tara VanDerveer mentioned that moment first when asked what the difference was in Stanford’s 67-55 loss at USC (11-4, 5-2 Pac-10) last Monday and Saturday’s victory, Stanford’s 27th in a row at home.

“The difference this time was we had 7,500 people cheering for us,” she said.

But the biggest factor of all was that the Trojans’ 6-foot-5 junior center, Lisa Leslie, was in early foul trouble and played only 13 minutes. She scored only six points--tying a career low--and had two rebounds.

USC Coach Marianne Stanley pointed out that her team had played five games in nine days.

Her best player picked up her fourth foul with 12:21 to go.

“I look at it this way: If we can play Stanford this tough without Lisa, imagine how tough we can be when we can have her the whole game against a tough team,” Stanley said.

Said USC’s Joni Easterly, who picked up the slack with 25 points and eight rebounds: “No one knows what Lisa goes through every night, because so much is expected of her. She’s under so much pressure, and she always keeps her composure. Every time she turns around, someone blows a whistle.”

Leslie had three personals with 13:33 left in the first half, and Stanley took her out for the rest of the half. At the time, USC had a 14-4 lead. Stanford gained a 28-28 tie at halftime.

In the second half, with all of USC’s big players in foul trouble, Stanford was going into the post on virtually every play. Whiting had 27 points and became the first Pac-10 woman to go over 1,000 rebounds with the fifth of her 12 Saturday night.