Jan. 12, 2002
TEMPE, Ariz. - Sophomore Betsy Boardman scored a game-high 16 points to lead the Arizona State women's basketball team to a 68-40 victory over Washington State Saturday night at Wells Fargo Arena.
With the victory, their third straight and fifth in their last six games, Arizona State improves to 14-4 on the year and 5-2 in the Pac-10, while Washington State drops their 12th straight game and is now 2-15 overall and 0-7 in the Pac-10 this year. It was also the ninth straight win over the WSU Cougars for ASU, a streak dating back to the 1997-98 season.
Playing without their leading scorer, senior Amanda Levens, who missed the first game of her ASU career with a sprained ankle, the Sun Devils jumped ahead early, taking a 23-8 lead with 9:05 to play in the first half. Freshman guard Kylan Loney contributed seven of her career-high tying nine points in the first eight minutes of the ball game. WSU cut the lead to 10 with a three-pointer by freshman Francine McCurtain, a native of Chinle, Ariz., to make it 23-13 with 7:32 left in the half, but the Cougars did not score again until the last two seconds of the half, and ASU took a 33-15 lead into the locker room.
In the second half, Washington State never got closer than 17 points, while Boardman scored nine of her 16 points in the final 20 minutes for the Sun Devils en route to the 68-40 victory.
Boardman led a balanced ASU scoring attack with 16, while senior Cian Carvalho, who was limited to just 19 minutes because of the flu, had 11 points. Three other Sun Devils - senior Melody Johnson, Loney and freshman Carrie Buckner - each turned in nine points, while Loney also had a career-high four steals.
In her first career start, senior Rainy Crisp turned in five assists, four rebounds and three steals, while Buckner led the Sun Devils with seven rebounds and added three steals.
For Washington State, three Cougars scored in double figures led by sophomore Candace Field who had 12 points. Senior Brittney Hawks had 11 points and eight rebounds, while McCurtain finished with 10 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals.
Arizona State will play its next four games on the road in back-to-back Pac-10 road trips, traveling to UCLA and USC on Jan. 17 and 19, respectively, and to California and Stanford on Jan. 24 and 26. All of ASU's games can be heard live on XTRA 910 AM locally on via the internet at www.thesundevils.com. ASU's Jan. 26 game at Stanford will be televised live by Fox Sports Net to a national cable audience.