Writing a Sports Story

1			Write a 600-word story based on the following set of facts. The Stanford Cardinal men's basketball team won, 82-69, over visiting Arizona State on Thursday night. With the win, the Cardinal ended a two-game losing streak. The game was Stanford's ninth straight win at home. It was in an important game for the Pac-10 Conference teams. After the game, Stanford (9-4, 13-9) remained a game behind co-leaders UCLA and California. Also on Thursday, Cal sent the University of Arizona Wildcats to their sixth conference loss. The Wildcats are coming to Stanford Maples Pavilion on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. for a key game. Stanford senior Matt Haryasz, who scored 22 points, said: "Right now we just need to win. We're only a game out of first and we think we got robbed out of one at U of A. We're going to be pumped up to play." Haryasz, who has dealt with vision problems stemming from a poke to the eye two weeks ago at Oregon State, became the 35th player in school history to reach 1,000 points, following Hernandez, who reached the milestone earlier in the season. Haryasz also became the 13th player to record 1,000 points and 600 rebounds. "This injury has put things in perspective for me," Haryasz said. "Sometimes you take things for granted like always being able to see perfectly. To go down with the eye injury was tough. It's nice to see again." Stanford's Chris Hernandez scored 12 points and extended his consecutive free throw streak to 34. Hernandez is seven shy of Todd Lichti's 41 straight, and 15 short of the school record held by Ryan Mendez. Stanford senior Dan Grunfeld scored a career-high 31 points against Arizona on Thursday. He made 9 of 11 shots from the field and all 11 of his free throws. He now has a total of 914 career points for Stanford. Grunfeld, a first-team all-conference pick last year, injured his knee last Feb. 12 and had surgery on Feb. 23. He missed the final nine games of the season. Grunfeld was back in time for the beginning of the current season, but his shooting and scoring have both been off from last year. "The fact we won is more important, but it is special for me as far as coming back from an injury," Grunfeld said. "I'm wearing a lighter brace now, and it's nice to be able to do things I wasn't able to do before." Grunfeld began wearing the new brace in Saturday's loss at Gonzaga. Cardinal coach Trent Johnson said of Grunfeld and his new brace:. "He's had a lot of bounce the last week. I thought at Gonzaga he looked real good. It's nice to have Danny back." Haryasz said: "You can tell he's moving more fluid, and that's good for the team. It's good to know he's able to do so much more. A bunch of times I hit him (with passes), he was wide open. He got a couple of easy buckets, went to the foul line and started rolling." Stanfords' Antwi Atuahene, who scored 10 points, stole the ball and went all the way in for a layin to draw Arizona State within 49-43 with 13:37 to play. He was called for a foul 17 seconds later, and a technical foul was assessed on Sun Devil assistant coach Tony Benford moments later. Stanford made all four free throws on the play, and Hernandez added two more foul shots on the ensuing possession to push its lead back to double digits.