SAUL LOEB/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA's Shawntinice Polk shoots over Cal's Timea Ivanyi in Arizona's 17-point win.

Arizona's 68-51 win over California Saturday may not have made the same statement as its blowout win over Stanford, but it may carry just as much importance heading into the postseason.

With the win, the No. 24 Wildcats (20-7, 13-5) finished in a second-place tie with Washington, and by virtue of a tie-breaker, were awarded the third seed in this week's Pac-10 tournament ÷ the best Pac-10 finish for Arizona in three seasons.

"I am really proud of this team and all the players' hard work," said head coach Joan Bonvicini. "We are going into the conference tournament on a good winning streak. I believe we can play even better, because every game now is huge."

UA will play Oregon State next Saturday at 2:15 p.m. in San Jose in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament. That will give the Wildcats a week of preparation before starting their post-season run, a much-needed layoff after a lackluster performance against the 9-18 Golden Bears.

"We had a really slow start (against Cal)," said freshman center Shawntinice Polk. "I don't know what's going on, but that can't happen."

Arizona played a sloppy first half, unable to pull away from Cal until five minutes into the second half, when the team used a 19-2 run to claim its 20th victory of the season.

"It wasn't always pretty, but we got it done," said Bonvicini. "At halftime, we decided to play some defense. We went to a power game, and that's how we got back into it."

The main factor in the Wildcats' second half run was the dominant inside play from both Polk and senior forward Krista Warren. The two post players had 22 and 16 points respectively, but even more impressive was their play on the defensive end.

"I had to stay aggressive," Polk said. "I couldn't just let down. I had to either stay in and play good defense or foul out."

Polk sat out a majority of the first half after getting her third foul with five minutes remaining in the opening frame. She only played 24 minutes, but was still able to set a school record with nine blocks, just one block and three boards away from the team's first ever triple-double.

The blocks record was not the only record that Polk set for the day. Seven rebounds boosted her count to 291 for the year, giving her the school record for boards, and she also set the freshman scoring mark with 482 points.

With this win, the Wildcats finished a perfect season at home in conference play and will carry a 13-game home winning streak into next year. This was the first time in the program's 31-year history that the team has finished with no losses at home during the conference season. The team also tied the 1997-98 and 1999-00 squads for best finish in Pac-10 play.

Notes

Freshman forward CoCoa Sanford was taken out of the game midway through the first half when she bumped heads with Cal center Olga Volkova. Sanford required five stitches on her left eyebrow, but did return to the bench late in the second half.