No. 10 Arizona State 80, UCLA 69

2/18/2007 7:31 PM

LOS ANGELES (AP) -Arizona State's Briann January made UCLA pay for leaving her open on the outside.

January had a career-high 22 points with nine assists and six steals to lead No. 10 Arizona State to an 80-69 victory over UCLA on Sunday.

``We just tried to keep the floor spread,'' said January, who made six of 12 shots from the field. ``UCLA was pretty saggy (on defense) so we could catch them on that outside shot quite a bit.''

Emily Westerberg and Danielle Orsillo added 12 points apiece for the Sun Devils (25-3, 15-2 Pacific-10), who won their sixth straight to remain a half-game behind first-place Stanford in the conference race.

Arizona State also set single-season team records for most conference victories and regular-season victories.

``I think they have a sense that they're going to set a lot of firsts this year,'' Sun Devils coach Charli Turner Thorne said of her players. ``It used to be, 'Can you get to 25 (wins)?' Now, it's 'Can you get to 30?' We haven't been that team before.''

Noelle Quinn had 20 points, six rebounds and five assists for the Bruins (13-15, 7-9), who have lost four of five. Lindsey Pluimer added 13 points and eight rebounds, and Chinyere Ibekwe grabbed 11 rebounds. UCLA outrebounded Arizona State 46-26, but committed 24 turnovers and shot 39.7 percent.

``It's been a tough season,'' Bruins coach Kathy Olivier said. ``We're just up and down, and we've been very inconsistent. We did a great job on the boards yet you can't turn the ball over 24 times and expect to win.''

UCLA trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half, but got to 36-33 with 17:46 to play. Kirsten Thompson's follow and Orsillo's 3-pointer extended Arizona State's lead to 41-33 with 16:29 left.

The Sun Devils later went on a 10-0 run that gave them a 57-39 advantage with 10:04 remaining. Arizona State led by as many as 20 points and shot 50 percent.