KEVIN B. KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Senior guard Dee-Dee Wheeler drives to the basket during UA's 86-65 win over Oregon State in McKale Center Saturday afternoon. Five players reached double figures during the game, including Wheeler with 14 points.

Oregon State proved to be no contest for the Arizona women's basketball team as the Wildcats defeated the Beavers 86-65 Saturday afternoon in McKale Center.

Arizona (14-5, 6-3 Pacific 10 Conference) shot 52 percent from the field with five Wildcats scoring in double digits. In addition, Arizona nailed 83 percent of its shots from the free-throw line, an area in which the Wildcats struggled earlier this season.

"We're shooting much, much better from the free-throw line," said UA head coach Joan Bonvicini. "The thing we need to do better is execute in the half court, and obviously, box out. What I was disappointed with was breakdowns defensively and (we) didn't box out.

"And that's not just our posts. That's a lot on our guards that we were allowing people to come in," she said.

Freshman guard Jessica Arnold notched a career-high 21 points, helped by 75 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

"With that (shoulder) brace, it was, at first, kind of a little difficult to get my shot down but I got used to it after a while," said Arnold, who also swiped three steals. "I'm getting more comfortable with my shot and still working with my release - a quicker release. The coaches are telling me I need to become more aggressive."

Junior center Shawntinice Polk scored 15 points, and senior point guard Dee-Dee Wheeler added 14 points and six assists. Junior guard Natalie Jones and senior forward Danielle Adefeso recorded 15 and 10 points, respectively. The game was Adefeso's second start of the year, the first coming at UCLA Jan. 16. Five minutes into the game, Arnold nailed her second 3-pointer to make the score 12-5. Later in the half, Arnold swiped a steal off of OSU's Karen Vickery and fed freshman guard Ashley Whisonant for a layup, pushing the UA lead to 25-8.

The Wildcats led by as many as 25 in the first half, entering halftime up 47-23.

Arizona shot 100 percent from the free-throw line and forced 12 OSU turnovers in the half.

Melanie Casey made a trey to start the second half as part of a 9-2 OSU run.

After that, it was all Arizona.

Jones netted two free throws to make it 73-44 with eight minutes left to play. Freshman Chari Smith flipped in a layup for a 79-52 advantage after rebounding a missed long ball by senior guard Katrina Lindner.

"You have to give Oregon State credit because they were down big and could have hung their head, but they came back and fought, particularly in the second half. I thought we did a very, very good job on Shannon Howell," said Bonvicini of the Oregon guard, who was held to nine points and two assists.

Jones said stopping Howell was especially important.

"We knew Shannon Howell was the leading scorer in the Pac-10, so we set a goal that she'd be under 10 (points)," said Jones, who guarded Howell. "And I'm looking and the girl is averaging 20 points. I take that personal."

Though her shooting has improved in the last few games, Jones said she is experiencing nagging pain in her right arm.

"It's weird; I don't know if I have tendonitis in my arm or not, but it's so weird when you have these injuries and the next thing you know you're doing better," Jones said. "It's something that's just been going and just gradually and it's just getting worse. I can't tell really what it is. It's just aching pain."

Arizona continues to be without the services of sophomore forward-center Shannon Hobson, who injured her left knee against Southern California Jan. 14.

Wednesday, Arizona hosts in-state rival ASU at 7 p.m. in McKale Center. The Sun Devils defeated Oregon 74-65 Saturday.

"We control our destiny," Bonvicini said. "We are 6-3 (in the Pac-10), which normally you wouldn't say is great. But considering the struggles we had with injuries, I think it's very good.

"I had someone tell me that we couldn't get 10,000 people here," she said. "I would love to have 10,000 people show up here on Wednesday when we play ASU and really get the people in the Tucson behind us."