Dec. 20, 2002
AKRON, Ohio - Freshmen Jill Noe scored 16 points as the Arizona State women's basketball team wrapped up the non-conference season with an 82-46 victory at Akron Friday night at Akron's James A. Rhodes Arena.
The victory is ASU's third straight win and improved the team to 8-1 on the year, which is the best start since the 1991-92 team turned in a perfect 9-0 record to start the season. Akron fell to 1-7 on the year with the loss.
Arizona State led for the whole game, scoring the first six points of the game and building a double-digit lead with 13:23 left in the first half. Sophomore Kylan Loney led all scorers with eight points in the first half, while Noe and fellow freshman Kristen Kovesdy each had six points en route to ASU's 36-21 halftime lead.
The Sun Devils continued to roll in the second half, opening the period with an 18-0 run to build a 54-21 lead with 13:03 left in the game. Akron scored its first field goal of the second half with 12:19 to play but never got closer than 29 points. Arizona State shot 81.0 percent (17-21) and outrebounded Akron 14-6 in the second half en route to the 82-46 victory.
Noe led four Sun Devils in double figures with 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting and led the team with five assists and four steals. Loney turned in 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting including a pair of three pointers, while Kovesdy and junior Jen Albert chipped in with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Freshman Amy Denson led the team in rebounding with eight boards and added six points on 3-of-4 shooting. Akron's Raegan Johnson led the Zips with 11 points.
Arizona State next takes six days off for the holidays before traveling to the Bay Area to open the Pac-10 Conference season at fifth-ranked Stanford on Friday, Dec. 27 at 7 p.m. Pacific Time (8 p.m. MST). The game at Stanford, which will be a rematch of the last year's Pac-10 Tournament championship game, will be televised to a national cable audience on Fox Sports Net and can be heard locally on KUET 710 AM. Following the Stanford game, the Sun Devils wrap up their four-game road trip with a game at Cal on Sunday, Dec. 29 at 2 p.m. Pacific (3 p.m. Mountain).