BERKELEY, Calif. — Cate Reese scored six of her 13 points in the fourth quarter, Shaina Pellington added 12 points and No. 18 Arizona beat California 63-56 Saturday night to win its fifth game in a row.
Kailyn Gilbert scored 10 points for Arizona (11-1, 2-0 Pac-12).
Jayda Curry led Cal (9-4, 0-2) with 13 points — eight in the fourth quarter — but was just 4-of-17 shooting. Leilani McIntosh scored 12 points, Kemery Martin 11 and Ugonne Onyiah added 10.
Curry made back-to-back layups 18 seconds apart in a 14-5 run that cut Cal's deficit to six points when Onyiah made two free throws with 3:35 left in the third quarter and Curry, McIntosh and Martin each hit a 3-pointer in an 13-4 run early in the fourth that made it 50-all when Curry hit two free throws with 6:20 to play. Cate Reese made a jumper, Esmery Martinez took a steal the other way for a layup with 5:36 remaining and the Wildcats led the rest of the way.
Martinez, Arizona's third-leading scorer (12.7 per game) and leading rebounder (9.8), fouled out with two points and four rebounds — both season lows — in 13 minutes.
Evelien Lutje Schipholt made a layup for Cal to open the scoring just 6 seconds in but Jade Loville made a 3-pointer 50 seconds later that gave the Wildcats the lead for good and sparked a 10-0 run the Golden Bears went scoreless for the next 5-plus minutes.
Lutje Schipholt made a layup to cap an 8-2 spurt that closed the first quarter and trimmed Cal's deficit to 12-10 going into the second. The Wildcats, who shot just 31.3% (5 of 16) in the first quarter, hit 10 of 14 from the field in the second, including nine consecutive made field goals to close the half 33-20 lead.
Arizona wraps up its Bay Area road trip Monday at No. 2 Stanford.
No. 2 Stanford routs ASU
STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford's appreciative guards love how they can draw their offensive players into the paint and leave the rest to their opportunistic posts to help out whenever needed.
Cameron Brink is a one-woman swat crew.
“Our bigs are really talented,” Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer said. “Sometimes they're quick players but if we can get people to come into our bigs we can change their shot or block their shot.”
Hannah Jump hit three early 3-pointers and six in all on the way to 20 points and second-ranked Stanford quickly ran away from Arizona State, beating the Sun Devils 101-69 on Saturday night for its eighth straight victory.
Birthday girl Brink contributed 17 points, 14 rebounds, four assists and two blocked shots, and Haley Jones had 16 points, seven boards and a pair of steals. The Cardinal (14-1, 2-0 Pac-12) jumped out to a 22-5 lead and kept going.
A special guest at Maples Pavilion for the New Year's Eve tilt: VanDerveer's 95-year-old mother Rita. She offered her daughter some coaching tips ahead of the game and was treated to seeing highly touted 6-foot-7 freshman star Lauren Betts make her first five shots in the fourth quarter for 10 points.
“Knowing that Cam, Lauren, Ash (Ashten Prechtel) are back there is kind of like an extra little security blanket, we can be a bit more aggressive,” Jump said of the strong post presences.
Tyi Skinner scored 20 points and junior transfer from Kentucky Treasure Hunt added 19 for Arizona State (7-6, 0-2), which shot just 4 for 20 in the opening quarter to fall behind 26-13.
But first-year coach Natasha Adair liked how her team bounced back after an 84-66 loss to open Pac-12 play Thursday in Tucson, showing more grit and hustle to corral loose balls and hit the boards while playing one of its best third quarters so far.
“We left a lot on the court, 50-50 balls, the extra-effort plays, so we talked about toughness,” she said. "We just have to fly around and finish on empty and I thought we took charges today, we were on the 50-50 balls. We were doing a lot of the things that I wanted us to do.
The Cardinal — ranked second for the 21st straight week dating to last season — are unbeaten since their lone loss in a 76-71 overtime defeat Nov. 20 to No. 1 and defending NCAA champion South Carolina.
Stanford has won 50 straight games against unranked opponents and 36 consecutive contests against Pac-12 teams including the past two conference titles and postseason.
No team has scored more than 77 points against the Cardinal since the start of the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season.
