It seems like fate pulls out the same template every time the Stanford and Arizona State women’s basketball teams clash. One side pulls away and almost makes the game a snoozer, only to be caught from behind late.

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Jeff Keacher

Junior point guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude notched career bests with 17 points and five three-pointers in Stanford’s final home Pac-10 contest, a 79-57 win over Arizona State on Saturday.

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Jeff Keacher

Seniors Cissy Pierce (left) and Candice Wiggins (right) are joined by coach Tara VanDerveer in a ceremony honoring the pair after the last home conference match of their careers on Saturday. The duo will play in Maples again, though — Stanford is hosting the first two rounds of NCAA tournament play next month.

That same story played itself out on Saturday at Maples Pavilion, except this weekend it was contained to the first half. No. 6 Stanford walloped ASU by a nearly two-to-one margin in the second half to run away with the game, 79-57. The Cardinal got its 12th straight win on Senior Day, the team’s last home game of the regular season.

“Our team played a great game,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “ASU is a tough team, and we had to play this well to be successful against them.”

Senior guard Candice Wiggins led all players with 23 points and also nabbed 5 of the Cardinal’s 10 steals, while sophomore center Jayne Appel and sophomore point guard Rosalyn Gold-Onwude chipped in 17 points apiece.

Gold-Onwude went 5-for-6 from three-point range, leading Stanford to an 11-for-19 (57.9 percent) mark from behind the arc for the game.

The Cardinal came out of the topsy-turvy first half with only a six-point advantage, at 38-32. However, the team took complete control of the game in the opening minutes of the second period. After surrendering a layup to ASU 30 seconds in, Stanford held the Sun Devils without a field goal or a free throw for more than six minutes, during which Wiggins and Gold-Onwude combined for 10 of 12 Stanford points.

After building that 50-34 lead, the Cardinal cruised through the remaining 14 minutes of the half, never allowing Arizona State to get within 12 points.

Stanford shot lights out all game, hitting at a 46.7 percent clip in the first half (with 6-for-10 three-point shooting) before turning up the heat in the second half with a scorching 63 percent performance.

Gold-Onwude said that the sharp uptick in shooting was not a coincidence.

“We’ve been focusing on shooting in the past couple practices,” Gold-Onwude said. “Especially when Candice and Jayne draw so much attention, we have to be able to knock those looks down.”

The Cardinal built a 13-5 lead early in the game before seeing it crumble as ASU took the lead at 21-19 five minutes later. But with the offense misfiring a little, Stanford reasserted its dominance with a complete defensive shutdown of the Sun Devils.

With the raucous crowd counting down a few seconds removed from the shot clock, the Cardinal forced Arizona State into two shot-clock violations in three possessions toward the end of the first half, as Stanford climbed back on top behind its barrage of three-pointers.

Stanford forced a number of ASU’s 22 turnovers in that period, with Wiggins and the other guards collapsing on the Sun Devils’ posts and stripping the ball from them again and again.

Gold-Onwude said the defensive effort helped cue the offense to let loose in the second half.

“We can always bring energy to defense [no matter what],” Gold-Onwude said. “That’s where we get great leadership from our seniors.”

Those seniors — Wiggins and guard Cissy Pierce — were playing in their last regular season home game at Maples Pavilion, though they will be back for the NCAA Tournament’s opening rounds next month. The Cardinal will finish off its Pac-10 season over the next two weeks. Up next is a battle at Cal, where the conference title will be on the line.