Ron Rivera on Hand to See Cal Women Get First Pac-12 Road Win

Jayda Curry scores 21 points in convincing victory over Arizona State

With former Cal All-America linebacker Ron Rivera in attendance, the Cal women picked up their first Pac-12 road win of the season by beating Arizona State 72-61 Friday night in Tempe, Ariz.

Rivera, the head coach of the Washington Commanders, is in the area to attend Sunday's Super Bowl in nearby Glendale, Ariz., and he saw Jayda Curry score 21 points and break the Pac-12 record for consecutive regular-season games with a made three-pointer.

She was 2-for-6 from distance on Friday, giving her 46 straight regular-season games with a 3-pointer, breaking the record of 45 she held jointly with USC's Shay Murphy.

Curry also helped the Golden Bears (12-12, 3-10 Pac-12) match the most overall and conference victories in Charmin Smith's four seasons as head coach. They had 12 overall wins and three Pac-12 victories in 2019-20, Smith first season as Cal's head coach.

“You know, it's good to get another win," Smith said. "We really want to try to build some momentum here and see if we can string together a streak. It would be nice, happy that Jayda got the record for three-pointers made. I thought it was a solid team effort.”

The Golden Bears had been 0-5 in conference road games this season, with all five losses coming by double-digit margins, before breaking through on Friday.

Cal took control with a dominant third quarter, outscoring Arizona State 17-3 in that period. The Bears made just 3 of their first 16 shots in the third quarter, but that was good enough to increase a one-point halftime lead to nine points midway through the third quarter.

Arizona State (7-15, 0-13 Pac-12) went 1-for-15 from the floor in the third quarter, which ended with Cal holding a 15-point lead at 51-36.

“We have to have the kind of take-it mentality, like you don't just want to win. We're going to take it and stay aggressive and impose our will and I think we can have some success against Arizona [on Sunday]," Smith said.

Cal finished the game with 20 turnovers, nine of which came in the first quarter, allowing ASU to carry a four-point lead into the second quarter. The Bears took better care of the ball after that, helping them take control of the contest.

Arizona State committed just 10 turnovers but shot only 30% from the field, including 1-for-11 on 3-point attempts.

Curry added five rebounds and four assists to her 21-point effort, while Evelien Lutje Schipholt collected 14 points and Leilani McIntosh had 13 points and four assists. As a team Cal had 18 assists on 25 made field goals.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.