Just three months ago, Jayne Appel was having the breakthrough performance of her Stanford career. Now the freshman center is breaking records.

Over the weekend, she had two straight double doubles (her second and third overall). Against Oregon State, Appel had a career-high 28 points and 17 rebounds (a season high for the Cardinal), only to follow it up with a near triple-double — 18 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists — against Oregon.

Having averaged 23.0 points, 14.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists for the Oregon sweep, Appel was named Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Week for Feb. 12-18.

“Jayne has been delivering, and I think she’ll finish stronger.” head coach Tara VanDerveer said. “She’s playing with more and more confidence; being named Player of the Week has been great for her, and I think she’s just scratching the surface of how good she’s going to be. Our team has a lot of confidence in her.”

Back in November, Appel’s confidence was only beginning to develop. She made her debut in the Nov. 13 Brigham Young game, coming off of an injured left shoulder, which had kept her on the bench for a month. Appel came on the court with 17:19 left in the first half; in just 14 minutes, she garnered five rebounds, four points and two blocks. It was not enough, though, to stop the then-No. 24 Cougars en route to a 55-52 upset over then-No. 4 Stanford.

After the disappointment, Appel followed up with a true breakthrough performance. In the third game of her career, going up against Candace Parker and then-No. 4 Tennessee, Appel managed 23 points, five rebounds and five blocks in just 30 minutes of play. The next game, against then-No. 8 Georgia, she added another 16 points and nine rebounds.

Back then, Appel said she was nervous being on the court with top-ranked teams. Three months later, a lot has changed.

After having felt “thrown into the mix” in Tennessee and Georgia, Appel said she now knows what VanDerveer expects of her — and it’s only to work harder.

“I feel like Coach has given me something pretty much every day to work on,” Appel said. “The first week after Tennessee and Georgia was that I can’t dribble, the next week was to use my left instead of going to the right, [etc.]. Every week has accumulated with me trying to get better.

“So now, I feel like I’ve been able to piece it all together,” she continued. “Hopefully, for the rest of the year, it’ll be like that.”

Yet, even after piecing it together this weekend against the Oregon schools, Appel had another assignment: shooting a better percentage.

She shot 55.2 percent from the field over the weekend on 21-of-38 shooting, and is also shooting 55.2 percent on the season.

“The shots I’m taking are easy shots that I should be making — that’s definitely a key thing for this week,” Appel said.

For the season, the Pleasant Hill, Calif. native has had 17 double-digit scoring games, leading the Cardinal in scoring nine times (including ties). She ranks third on the team with a 13.1-point average. And as Appel continues to works on her shot, the Cardinal will respond.

“She really works on getting a great position,” VanDerveer said. “I think, as a team, we’re working hard to get her the ball more . . . She’s getting great shots, and I think she’ll shoot better and better as the season ends up.”

However, more pressing for the young freshman is long-running trouble with fouls. Appel fouled out two straight times at Arizona State on Jan. 27 and at Santa Barbara on Feb. 1, and she has other close calls on record.

So when Appel had her fourth foul against Washington on Feb. 10 with 12:26 left in the game, VanDerveer reminded her, “If you want to stay in the game and play, you need to stay in the game.”

Appel responded and played another 10 minutes before subbing out; this weekend she had three fouls each at Oregon State and Oregon.

“She figured that out this weekend, and we’ll see if [avoiding those fouls] carries over,” VanDerveer said. “Jayne knows you can only have five fouls, and she doesn’t get a whole lot of love from the officials . . . I think she’s understanding that she needs to play a little better defense, move her feet and trade space [to avoid fouling].”

For this 2006 Gatorade State Player of the Year, keeping herself in the game and the free-throw points low is just another part of her role on the Stanford team, as much as making her inside shots and getting up on the boards.

And for all of the Cardinal, it’s these kinds of roles that matter as the team enters the postseason, looking to reclaim its Pac-10 tournament title and advance past the Elite Eight in the NCAAs. According to Appel, as much as she has been piecing together her own role, it is now about “everyone coming together, getting the chemistry that we’ve been building all season.”

“For everyone on our team it’s getting to the point where [we realize] ‘This is your role,’ ‘This is what you need to do,’ which is good,” Appel said. “It’ll keep us focused to where we want to go.”

Where Appel wants to head next is toward victories over UCLA and Southern California to cap her freshman year. But VanDerveer knows there’s much more in store for Appel after that.

“Jayne is having a fabulous freshman year,” VanDerveer said, “and the best is still in front of us.”