“Young” and “new” are still the words being thrown around about the 2009-2010 edition of the ASU women’s basketball team.

But the No. 16 Sun Devils passed their first test of the 2009-2010 season, and it came against a squad that made the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year.

ASU used an early second-half run and two career performances by its starting post players to pull away from South Dakota State 73-64 at Wells Fargo Arena in their season opener.

“This is the best team we’ve opened with [at home] in a long, long time,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “They still scored too many points on us, but we definitely frustrated them and wore them out. We’re young and we’ve got a lot of things to work on, and we just said, ‘Let’s outwork this team. Let’s just find a way.’”

ASU senior forward Kayli Murphy notched her second career double-double, tying her career high with 12 points to go along with a career-best 13 rebounds, while junior forward Becca Tobin scored a career-high 18 points and added six rebounds in her first career start.

“I was just really trying to play hard and play aggressive,” Murphy said. “Those are things that you can control. You can control how hard you play, and [I was] just fighting to the rebound every time.”

After a 3-pointer by ASU senior guard Danielle Orsillo capped an 11-0 run that gave the Sun Devils (1-0) a 35-27 lead with 4:26 to play before halftime, SDSU (1-1) responded with its own 9-3 spurt to close the gap to 38-36 heading into the locker room.

But the ASU defense clamped down to start the second half, as SDSU missed eight of its first 10 shots and the Sun Devils went on 13-5 run to take their first double-digit advantage of the game at 51-41 with 13 minutes to play.

“We were just digging like we needed to dig in,” Turner Thorne said.

“When you take away every pass a team can make, they have one option. We made a few less mistakes in the second half, and it showed, and I think we wore them down.
ASU reached its largest lead of the game of 66-50 on a jumper by junior guard Tenaya Watson at the 4:37 mark.

A 3-pointer by SDSU sophomore forward Jennie Sunnarborg cut ASU’s lead to 69-61 with 1:12 to play, but any chances of a Jackrabbits’ rally were halted on back-to-back layups by Murphy that put the Sun Devils up by 12 and gave Murphy the double-double.

“Kayli was everywhere,” Orsillo said. “I’m so proud of her, because it’s her senior year and she’s stepping up big for us right now. Every key play, you saw No. 21 Kayli Murphy in there.”

Orsillo finished the game with 12 points, five assists and four steals, while Watson filled out the box score with eight points, seven rebounds and seven assists as one of six Sun Devils that made their ASU debut.

SDSU junior guard Kristin Rotert led the Jackrabbits with 14 points, and Sunnarborg chipped in with 11.

Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.