Strong Second Half Propels No. 14 Sun Devil WBB Over Cal
BERKELEY, Calif. – Promise Amukamara scored a game-high 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds as the No. 14 Arizona State women’s basketball team won its 12th straight game, defeating Cal 67-52.
Quinn Dornstauder came off the bench to score 13 and Kelsey Moos scored all 10 of her points in the second half to help keep the Sun Devils (16-1, 5-0) tied for first place in the Pac-12 with No. 9 Oregon State and No. 13 Stanford.
Also coming through with a strong game was Oakland, Calif., native (Berkeley HS graduate) Elisha Davis, who scored seven points and dished out seven assists.
ASU shot 52 percent for the game, including a 75-percent performance from long distance (6-8) in the second half.
Each team led by as many as eight twice through the first 30-plus minutes of the game. Cal’s advantages came in the first half while ASU’s came in the second half. After trailing by three with 18:23 remaining, the Sun Devils used an 11-0 run to go up 45-37.
The game’s deciding sequence would start to unfold when Brittany Boyd scored on a layup, which capped a 6-0 run and pulled Cal (11-5, 3-2 Pac-12) within two, 48-46, with 10:28 remaining. At a point where it seemed the momentum might be starting to teeter in Cal’s favor, Amukamara answered with a 3-pointer to extend ASU’s lead back to 51-46.
Cal would cut the lead to four with a free throw at the opposite end, but would get no closer the rest of the game as the Sun Devils used a 16-5 run over the span of 5:42 to stretch out to what would ultimately be the final count, 67-52 with 2:53 remaining.
Seven different Sun Devils scored over the last 8:35 as ASU shot 67 percent during the stretch, including 2-2 (Katie Hempen and Peace Amukamara) from beyond the arc. Equally impressive was the defensive effort ASU used to close out the game. Over that same span of time, Cal was only 2-of-10 from the floor and 0-of-5 from long range.
Hempen (2-3), Kelsey Moos (2-3) and Peace and Promise Amukamara (both 1-1) all helped account for the long-range barrage in the second half, as the quartet combined to go 6-of-8.
Early on it appeared as though the game might be a down-to-the-wire affair as both teams took their best shot to gain control of the game, however neither team was able to shake the other.
Cal was able to use its size advantage to take a pair of eight-point leads (14-6, 21-13). The pendulum started to swing in ASU’s favor when Dornstauder entered the game with 10:04 remaining. After a layup by Sophie Brunner cut Cal’s lead to six, Dornstauder would take over as she scored ASU’s next 11 points in the game. By the time Dornstauder was subbed out with 4:38 remaining, ASU had turned the eight-point deficit into a two-point lead, 27-25.
Amukamara would score ASU’s last four points of the half to give ASU a 31-28 halftime advantage.
The Sun Devils close out their road trip to the Bay Area on Monday (3 p.m. PT/4 p.m MT) when they play at No. 13 Stanford. The game can be seen live on Pac-12 Networks and heard live on 1440 AM KAZG.