A season-high crowd of 4,891 was on hand at Hec Edmundson Pavilion yesterday to watch the Washington women’s basketball team face off against against No. 7 Stanford.

The crowd appeared to spur on the Huskies, and they kept things close in the first half but ultimately fell apart in the second and lost 76-54 after several failed comeback attempts.

“The crowd was awesome, absolutely awesome,” UW coach Tia Jackson said. “There were times when I could just feel their energy, I couldn’t hear myself yelling.”

The Huskies (5-16, 1-10 Pac-10) appeared energized at times too, forcing Stanford (19-4, 10-1 Pac-10) to turn the ball over and going on little runs, but mistakes did them in.

Jackson added that the Huskies’ 15-25 shooting from the free-throw line as well as 19-62 shooting from the field were also problems.

“We missed 10 free throws that were on paper, but some of those were front ends of one-and-ones,” Jackson said. “If we were to hit those, that would give or take five to six points there.”

Junior guard Sami Whitcomb said the Husky defense was not up to usual standards either.

“If we can just move a little faster on defense, remember our rotations a split-second quicker, I think that would improve a lot for us and change the score early too,” Whitcomb said.

Washington’s foul troubles also put the team in a tough spot.

“Right off the bat, we had starters sitting on the bench with two fouls,” Jackson said. “Sometimes you’ve just got to play what you’ve got.”

Fouls were an issue on both sides of the ball, and Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer was not pleased with the officiating.

“I was surprised and really disappointed at how close things were called,” VanDerveer said. “I thought the fouling, unfortunately, was upsetting to our rhythm and theirs.”

In the first half, the Huskies refused to repeat the 77-point pummeling handed to them by Stanford earlier in the season.

The Dawgs repeatedly struck back against the Cardinal early, coming within three points three times.

At halftime, the UW trailed the Cardinal by seven, 38-31, but that would be about as close as it would remain for the rest of the game as Stanford began to roll over the Dawgs in the second frame.

“It looked like we ran out of gas,” Jackson said. “We’re going to have to learn how to play past a certain point.”

The Cardinal began the second half with a 12-2 run, essentially putting the game away after going up 50-33 with 14:37 remaining in the game.

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.