The women’s basketball team is back on track.

The Dawgs (14-10 overall, 7-6 Pac-10) beat Arizona 79-64 Saturday just in time to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day on Feb. 7. The win put an end to a three-game slide, and more importantly, it was just the second time in six games that the Huskies shot above 37 percent from the floor.

“I think that the numbers speak a lot for themselves,” said coach June Daugherty. “Our defense was playing well, but it doesn’t matter who our opponent is. If you overlook anyone in the Pac-10 then you are making a big mistake. Last week Arizona played Stanford to a 10-point game, so I’m proud of how we played and that we were able to get it done out there.”

The Wildcats (8-17 overall, 2-11 Pac-10) came out looking like the Huskies of three weeks prior, struggling to get anything going on offense. They didn’t score until nearly five minutes into the game.

Daugherty’s new starting lineup, consisting of Jill Bell, Maggie O’Hara, Dominique Banks, Cameo Hicks and Emily Florence, shut the Wildcats down defensively, but they too came out of the gates at a trot. Even with Arizona’s slow start, Washington found itself trailing 7-5.

“We are just trying to get better starts,” Bell said. “We haven’t been starting the games very well, but we have been doing pretty well lately. I think the last two games we started the games off strong, getting some good defensive stops, especially against Arizona State and Arizona.”

With Washington, defensive stops played a vital role in revving up the offense. The Dawgs used defense to take a 27-21 lead into halftime.

“If we can defend really hard and rebound to turn the game into a running game, things just get much easier,” Daugherty said. “Tonight our defense was better and we were clicking on all cylinders. This was a good bounce-back game for us.”

It was the Wildcats who bounced back in the second half, pulling within 30-29 after an 8-0 run just after the break, but they couldn’t bounce back far enough.

The Huskies responded with an 18-4 run that all but closed the door on Arizona. Hicks fueled the run with 10 of her team-high 25 points.

“Cameo looked good out there tonight,” Daugherty said. “I thought that our bench also did a nice job with coming in and playing with intensity.”

The Washington bench outscored Arizona’s 36-19.

Hicks, who tied with Bell for the team lead in rebounds with six, said her team’s hard work paid off in the win.

“I don’t know, I was just going out there trying to play hard,” Hicks said. “We did a great job on offense; we shot the ball really well. We were moving around setting screens. I think our willingness to get better and improve our offense and shoot the ball a lot better has made it easier to get into an offensive flow.”

The Dawgs hit the road for three of their past five games. Next week, they travel to No. 21 California and No. 8 Stanford. Both teams handed the Huskies embarrassing losses at home in January using huge advantages in the paint.

“The last time that we played them [the Bay Area schools] I don’t think that we played at all to our abilities,” Bell said. “I think that for us posts it is a time for us to redeem ourselves because their post players worked us all game. I know for me personally, I am going to go out and that is going to be one of my goals, to stop them down low.”

Reach reporter Sam Cameron at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.