On Friday, Arizona women's basketball stayed competitive with rival ASU. It kept the game within single-digits until the beginning of the fourth quarter, when ASU pulled ahead.
On Sunday, the No. 8 ranked Sun Devils (17-3, 8-0 Pac-12) never trailed, holding a double-digit advantage from the 4:02 mark in the first quarter onward. The 62-47 win marked ASU's 14th consecutive victory and eighth in a row in the Pac-12 — its best conference start in program history.
Sunday's tilt was the second game in three days between the two teams. In this unusual scenario, the Sun Devils came away with a regular season sweep of their rivals and a full point in the Territorial Cup.
ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne praised her team's efforts despite the fatigue that goes with playing two games in such a short time.
"They were in there like they just lost by 20," Turner Thorne said in an interview with NBC Sports Radio 1060 AM. "We'll probably get more out of that stinky second half than we would out of last year's game here when we beat (Arizona) by 47."
The Sun Devils held the Wildcats (11-9, 2-4 Pac-12) to 42 percent shooting and forced 14 turnovers. On the offensive end, senior guards Arnecia Hawkins and Katie Hempen combined for 33 points to lead the way for ASU.
Hawkins scored 11 of her 19 in the first quarter, starting the game 5-of-5 from the field and finishing 6-of-6 from the free throw line.
Hempen, on the other hand, finally found her shot after a season of struggles from the field. With four three-pointers made on Sunday, Hempen is three shy of the school record for her career.
The first quarter was dominant on both ends for the Sun Devils and included an 11-0 run. Hawkins was the catalyst during this run, scoring seven consecutive points as soon as she came off the bench.
A scoring drought that lasted just over four minutes plagued ASU in the second quarter, but its efforts on defense kept Arizona from making any kind of run to get back in the game. The Sun Devils went into the half leading 34-14.
Fatigue set in for ASU in the second half as the Wildcats won the third and fourth quarters by a total of five points. The comfortable lead built by the Sun Devils was too much to overcome, however, and Arizona fell by 15.
"As we go down the second half of this season, and we get tired, we've gotta be tough," Turner Thorne said. "We cannot let that fatigue, mentally and physically, take us out of what we want to do."
Reach the reporter at rclarke6@asu.edu or follow @RClarkeASU on Twitter.
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