Arizona forward Cate Reese outruns the opposition — and her teammates — to score a fast-break basket during Thursday’s game in McKale Center.

 Kelly Presnell photos, Arizona Daily Star

It wasn’t scripted to go this way.

Arizona returned to the court on Thursday night, playing its first game in 12 days after UC Riverside canceled their game because of COVID-19 issues. The Wildcats said they were excited to show what they had learned during their time off.

Less than 30 seconds into the game, sophomore Lauren Ware crumbled onto the floor and screamed in pain, holding her right knee.

A hush grew over the crowd at McKale Center as the trainer and UA coach Adia Barnes watched over Ware and helped her off the court.

With Ware out, the sixth-ranked Wildcats relied on the experience of the upperclassmen and an elite defense to hold off a pesky North Dakota State 59-47 in front of 7,037 fans.

Ware dislocated her knee, Barnes said after the game. Ware will get an MRI once the swelling goes down, and is likely to miss at least a week or two. Ware returned to the UA bench with ice on her knee before halftime. In the second half, her knee was wrapped and in a brace and she was using hand crutches.

Ware did not tear her ACL, which was a relief to Barnes. She suffered a tear to her other knee in high school.

“We’re not going to rush her back, but it’s not an injury we anticipated or thought that it looked like,” Barnes said. “We’re happy about that. That was good news. … It wasn’t anything major. Thank goodness.”

The Wildcats were a little shaken by Ware’s injury, and it showed. The UA had just nien points with 3 minutes left in the first quarter.

“Some of the girls had tears in their eyes,” Barnes said. “… I think that that kind of was deflating. I think that I think it’s normal for that to happen in my opinion.”

It wasn’t until the second half when Shaina Pellington and Cate Reese began to take over. Both scored in bunches. Reese finished with 13 points of 6-of-18 shooting and grabbed six rebounds. Pellington led the Wildcats with 16 points on 6-of-13 shooting and added four steals, four rebounds and three assists.

Reese played the entire third quarter and went 4 for 7, scoring nine points. Pellington scored five points in a seven-minute span. They helped the Wildcats extended the 10-point halftime lead to 47-33.

During that stretch, Pellington scored on a fast break after Bendu Yeaney grabbed a steal. One minute later, she nailed a 3-pointer.

Then it was all Reese as she got a steal and turned it into two points, followed by layups and jumpers.

The Bison wouldn’t go away. NDSU pulled with five points in the fourth quarter — hitting a few 3s — before Arizona’s swarming D put an end to it with back-to-back steals from Pellington who finished on a hesitation move and Sam Thomas who threw a long pass to Pellington.

This gave the Wildcats a 53-42 lead with less than five minutes left in the game.

“We knew at that point we need to make some big plays,” Pellington said. “Sam, obviously is a huge defensive stopper for us. And we know to what to expect from Sam. We both knew we need to get the ball back and we need to score. Get some steals and make them frantic offensively. We just upped the intensity defensively — made the ball-handlers have to feel us and when we did that. We had success.”

Arizona finished with 15 steals. Yeaney led the way with four, and Helena Pueyo had three.

UA president Robert C. Robbins, right, talks with forward Lauren Ware during a break int he action on Thursday night. Ware went down in the opening seconds with a dislocated knee.

Ariyah Copeland replaced Ware, played 22 minutes and scored 13 points. Copeland contributed to a 9-0 run in the first quarter with the first 3 of her career.

The Wildcats and the Bison both shot 35% from the field. Arizona hit its free throws, going 12 of 14 for 86%.

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