ASU Women’s Basketball: Sun Devils dominate in second half for 56-48 win in Utah

(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)

The ASU women’s basketball team grabbed a big road win over Utah in Salt Lake City 56-48 on Friday to move to 2-2 in Pac-12 conference play.

The Sun Devils trailed 17-9 at the end of the first quarter. After grabbing the quick 2-0 lead on junior Taya Hanson’s first of 15 points on the night, ASU struggled to make shots in the first half. In the first quarter, it only made three of 12 shots attempted. Combine that with five turnovers which dug a big hole early for ASU.

Another reason why ASU struggled offensively was Utah’s Peyton McFarland. The 6-4 freshman impressed on the defensive end of the floor, finishing with nine rebounds and six blocks.

“We were taking terrible shots, passing up wide open shots to take tougher shots, but we also missed open layups,” ASU head coach Charli Turner Thorne said postgame. “Even to start the second half we missed two wide open layups. We just kept fighting,”

The second quarter was a little more kind to the Sun Devils shooting wise, but the team still consistently trailed by seven to nine points throughout the period. ASU hit its lone three of the first half when Hanson was able to hit from downtown. Thanks to five offensive rebounds giving them second chances, the Sun Devils were able to turn those into points to stay afloat.

Junior Jamie Loera gave ASU some much needed momentum heading into the half with a tough layup falling to cut the deficit to 25-18 at the intermission.

Freshman Katelyn Levings and Loera hit shots early in the third quarter to cut the deficit to just four. Then, they would hold Utah scoreless for the next five minutes and 26 seconds, which led to an ASU 9-0 run to go ahead 34-31 before Utah was able to hit a free throw late in the quarter.

Senior Bre’yanna Sanders hit an open three with 46 seconds left to open up the Sun Devil lead to five. When all was said and done, ASU outscored the Utes 19-7 in the quarter, finished on a 12-1 run, and held Utah to no field goals in the last seven minutes and 29 seconds of the quarter.

“We played hard in the first half but we weren’t playing to our potential,” Sanders said. “We needed to come out, get stops and chip away.”

Both teams had their best scoring quarter of the game in the fourth. The Sun Devils took advantage of five more offensive rebounds for five more second chance points. In the end it came down to ASU hitting its free throws. It did just that. In fact, it hit all 15 of its free throw attempts in the second half alone. Hanson, Simmons, and Loera were responsible for 10 free throws that closed out the game in the fourth quarter.

“Charli (Turner Thorne) believes in me so it makes it a lot easier to step up when I need to,” Simmons said. “My teammates were great in the first three quarters when I wasn’t doing as well so overall it was good.”

A key stat that stood out was the three point shooting of Utah. Zuzanna Puc hit a three for the Utes with 2:47 left in the first quarter. They would not make a single shot from beyond the arc the rest of the game, going 1-19 from the three point line (5.3%).

“I’m proud of the team because we were connected, we played off each other on defense, we were aggressive, we took care of the ball, and we were able to get rebounds,” Hanson said. “The girls were killing it on the offensive glass and defensive glass. It was an all around better game today. We’re only going to go up from here.”

Turner Thorne echoed Hanson’s opinion.

“I was really proud of our second half of playing harder and better together,” Turner Thorne said. “We found a little help side and played some tough defense. We really started to control the boards in the second half and it was just a really good team win.”

Turner Thorne also expressed the maturity of the freshmen on her roster.

“All of our freshmen have no fear,” Turner Thorne said. “I’ve had plenty of freshmen and sophomores who have fear in their eyes and we showed none of that down the stretch which is amazing to me.”

The Sun Devils will face Colorado on Sunday as they hope to get into the top 25 NCAA Women’s Basketball rankings for the first time after receiving three votes this past week. The game will tip off at 2pm MST on the Pac-12 Network.