Jan. 8, 2000
TEMPE, Ariz. - The Arizona State women's basketball team defeated the California Golden Bears 69-59 Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena to improve to 2-0 in the Pac-10 Conference for the first time in school history.
On Thursday night, the Sun Devils opened their league schedule with a 74-68 victory over Stanford, their first over the Cardinal since the 1991-92 season and their first in a conference opener since 1990-91.
For the Sun Devils, now 9-3 on the season, sophomore Theresa Jantzen (Medicine Hat, Alberta) turned in 20 points, her fourth 20-point showing this season, on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and a 12-of-14 effort at the free throw line.
California opened the game on an 8-2 run, but Arizona State answered with a 6-0 run of its own to tie the game with 12:03 left in the first half. The Golden Bears then begin to build a small lead that would get as high as six points (15-9) when junior Nicole Ybarra hit a three-pointer with 9:49 to play. The Sun Devils once again began chipping away, taking their first lead of the half when freshman Brett Leonard (Glenview, Ill.) hit a jumper to give ASU an 18-17 edge with 7:02 left. Arizona State took a 22-21 lead into the locker room at halftime.
In the second half, the Golden Bears jumped out to a quick lead and topped the Sun Devils by as many as eight points. Cal led in the game for the first 13 minutes of the half until Jantzen hit a jumper with 5:04 left in the game to give ASU a 49-48 lead, an advantage they would not relinquish. Free throw shooting proved to be the difference in the game with the the Sun Devils converting of 33 of 40 attempts in the second half and 39 of 52 in the game, compared to just nine of 12 in the contest for the Golden Bears.
For the Sun Devils, Jantzen led the team with 20 points, while seniors Rachel Holt (Buckeye, Ariz.) and Kitch Kitchen (Newark, N.J.) each finished the game with 14 points. Kitchen led the team in rebounding for the second straight game with six rebounds and had three steals.
For the Golden Bears, now 5-7 overall and 0-2 in the Pac-10, junior Kenya Corley had 16 points on 8-of-15 shooting, while junior Courtney Johnson chipped in with 15. Three Cal players shared top rebounding honors with junior Lauren Ashbaugh and sophomores Shavaki Jackson and Ami Forney each grabbing seven boards.
Arizona State returns to action next weekend when the team travels to Washington (Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. MST) and Washington State (Jan. 15 at 4 p.m. MST). Both games can be heard live on KTKP Radio 1280 AM or via Audionet at www.thesundevils.com.