Arizona Battles Back to Beat Stanford, 28-23 : Pacific 10: After trailing, 17-7, at halftime, Wildcats turn the game around.

When Stanford took a 17-0 lead midway through the second quarter Saturday, Arizona Coach Dick Tomey acknowledged that “it had a chance to be ugly.”

But he said the Wildcats’ defense “wouldn’t let them get that next score . . . and it kept us alive.”

And that allowed the Wildcats, who trailed, 17-7, at halftime, to ride a turnabout engineered by quarterback George Malauulu to a stunning 28-23 victory.

Arizona is 1-1 overall and 1-0 in the Pacific 10. Stanford is 0-2 and 0-1.

The Wildcats’ Chuck Levy turned a cross-field pass into a 65-yard second-quarter touchdown play, dancing along the left sideline for Arizona’s first score.

Levy said he thought an official would say he had stepped out of bounds, “but I just kept going. It really picked us up.”

The teams flip-flopped in nearly every key statistic in the second half, starting with an 80-yard Arizona scoring drive that consumed the first 8:25.

“That’s just what was needed against a team like Stanford,’ Tomey said. “You have to keep their offense off the field.”

Stanford had the ball for 20:01 in the first half but only 11:13 in the last 30 minutes. The Cardinal had 14 first downs and 276 total yards at halftime, to Arizona’s six and 170 yards.

In the second half, the Wildcats had 14 first downs to Stanford’s nine and outgained the Cardinal 286 yards to 153. Malauulu finished with 219 yards passing.

“Tempo was set early in the second half,” Stanford Coach Dennis Green said.

Stanford linebacker Kevin Puk said, “Arizona came out up.”

Malauulu’s four-yard run capped the 80-yard drive.

Arizona went ahead, 21-17, with 13:08 remaining on Heath Bray’s two-yard dive on a fake field goal.

Steve McLaughlin lined up to kick a 19-yard field goal after an Arizona drive stalled at the Stanford two. But after the Cardinal declined a delay penalty, Bray took the snap and dived in.