Jan. 15, 2009
TEMPE, Ariz. - Dymond Simon scored a game-high 14 points and Kirsten Thompson added 12 as Arizona State won its third consecutive game, defeating UCLA 68-44.
Simon scored 10 of her 14 points from the foul line while Thompson tallied 10 of her 12 points in the second half. As a team the Sun Devils (11-6, 3-2 Pac-10) were 24-29 from the foul line, including a 6-of-6 performance by Thompson.
Doreena Campbell led UCLA (11-4, 2-2 Pac-10) with 13 points.
Arizona State shot 54 percent in the first half to build a 33-18 lead at the intermission. After the Sun Devils started the game with a 13-2 run, the Bruins answered with an 8-0 run of their own to close within three points on a field goal by Tierra Henderson. That is as close as UCLA would get the rest of the game as the Sun Devils outscored the Bruins 20-8 over the last eight minutes of the first half.
The Sun Devils would score eight of the first 10 points of the second half to build a 21-point lead, 41-20. They would lead by as many as 28 after Thompson sank a pair of free throws with 7:52 left in regulation.
Since dropping their first two Pac-10 games by a combined four points to Stanford (64-61) and California (54-53), the Sun Devils have rebounded to win their last three games by an average of 25.7 points. They have allowed only 44.3 points per game during that stretch.
Thursday's game started at 11 a.m. locally for Sparky's Kids to College Field Trip Day, an initiative in which the Arizona State women's basketball program invited nearly 6,000 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade children from around the Valley to the game. The kids made up the majority of ASU's season-high crowd of 7,322.