The No. 7 Stanford women’s basketball team roared to life from long range last night, beating Santa Clara on the road 96-74, behind a season-high 13 three-pointers.

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Freshman forward Kayla Pedersen had 15 points and 8 rebounds in the Cardinal’s 96-74 thrashing of Santa Clara last night. With the victory, Stanford won its eighth straight game and is now 20-3 on the year. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/8486
Alex Oppenheimer

Freshman forward Kayla Pedersen had 15 points and 8 rebounds in the Cardinal’s 96-74 thrashing of Santa Clara last night. With the victory, Stanford won its eighth straight game and is now 20-3 on the year.

Guards J.J. Hones and Candice Wiggins led the Cardinal (20-3, 9-2 Pac-10) with 20 points apiece. Hones sank five three-point shots while Wiggins had three.

Forwards Kayla Pedersen (15 points) and Jillian Harmon (11 points) also hit double-digits for the Cardinal, which pushed its winning streak to eight games. Pedersen led Stanford with eight rebounds.

The Broncos (16-6, 5-2 West Coast Conference) played Stanford tight for the opening four minutes, during which an unusually lax Cardinal defense allowed Santa Clara to keep up and tie the score at 10-10.

But the Cardinal immediately turned up the heat in response. Harmon and Hones scored off steals and Wiggins hit a three at the beginning of a 20-9 run that gave Stanford the lead for good. With more than six minutes to go in the first half, a long-range bomb from Hones put Stanford up by 20.

The Cardinal shot 20-for-29 (69 percent) in the first half and 62.1 percent for the game.

Santa Clara barely pulled within 20 points for the rest of the game, though it was more thanks to Stanford’s lights-out shooting than to the Cardinal’s effort on defense. While allowing the Broncos to run rampant on offense, Stanford challenged Santa Clara at the other end by sending Pedersen to the outside to knock down a pair of rare three-pointers.

The Cardinal allowed the most points on defense that it has all season, and the Broncos’ 46.2 percent field goal shooting was 10 points higher than Stanford’s average field goal defense rate.

Sophomore center Jayne Appel did not turn in her usual eye-popping numbers on the stat sheet, scoring 7 points and grabbing 4 rebounds. But the sophomore did hit every shot she took in 21 minutes on the floor: three from the field and one from the foul stripe on an and-one play with 7:49 to go in the first half.

Stanford returns to the court this weekend, when the team heads north to take on Oregon on Thursday and Oregon State on Saturday. Stanford boasts two Oregon natives — Harmon and Hones — on its roster.