The Arizona State women’s basketball team woke up in the second quarter, fell asleep again in the fourth but still completed a blowout, 70-47 win over New Mexico State in a matinee game on Wednesday.

The ASU defense carried the team in the game as the Sun Devils held the Aggies to just 10 points combined in the second and third quarters, including four in the second quarter.

ASU did not allow a point in the second quarter until 8:15 had passed in the period while going on a 15-0 run offensively. The success of the second quarter carried over into the third as the Sun Devils held the Aggies to 3-12 (25 percent) shooting and forced six turnovers, three of which were steals. This was after a slow start offensively, a point of concern for the Sun Devils so far this season, as ASU shot just 5-16 (31.3 percent) in the period and led by only three (14-11) going into the second quarter.

“…I thought we started a little bit slow,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said on her postgame interview with 1440 AM in Phoenix. “Thought we had a very dominant second quarter…I thought the starters came out and just killed it in the third quarter and I lit them up a little bit. I didn’t like our energy. I didn’t like our effort overall in the first half and they responded incredibly well…”

The ASU bench was huge in the win on Wednesday.

The Sun Devils were led in scoring by freshman forward Eboni Walker, who poured in a career-high 13 points on 6-11 shooting while grabbing four rebounds. She also led the team in steals with three. Sophomore forward Iris Mbulito was impactful as well as she had a breakout game offensively dropping a season-high 10 points while grabbing three rebounds and dishing out three assists. She also had one of ASU’s two blocked shots.

While ASU dominated defensively in the second and third quarters, the fourth quarter was a completely different game as New Mexico State began the quarter on a 12-0 run and ended up outscoring the Sun Devils 26-17 in the period.

“…Too many lapses,” Turner Thorne said. “I mean I give us about like a C- today. Just overall probably an F in offensive execution to be honest. …We were really, really bad and that’s going to be a huge area that we have to grow if we want to have a great season because we just stood around and stared at each other.”

Big news coming out of the game was sophomore guard Jamie Loera being back in the lineup. She missed the first 10 games of the season due to injury. She came in late in the first half and ended up playing three minutes in the game, recording one rebound.

“Jamie Loera…It was nice to get her in for a few minutes to just kind of get a little bit of a feel, Turner Thorne explained. “I mean she’s really barely practiced. I mean she just got cleared…”

New Mexico State was led by freshman guard Gia Pack. The Phoenix native and South Mountain High School graduate scored a game-high 20 points while adding a game-high 10 rebounds.

ASU (9-2) returns home on Friday to play Creighton (8-2) at 2 p.m. MST.