San Francisco, CA --- A court malfunction at the Urban Knights' home facility, Kezar Pavilion, brought ART U to City College of San Francisco for a conference match against the visiting Redstorm of Dixie State. The Urban Knight women battled a very tough Redstorm team until the final minute of play but ultimately dropped a 50-76 decision. With the win the Redstorm improve to an impressive 12-1 on the season and remain undefeated conference play (2-0). The Urban Knights, however, drop to 4-10 overall and 2-3 in the PacWest.

"Dixie State is a very good team on an incredible run this season," said Head Coach Lindsey Yamsasaki. "Unless you come out strong, hitting jumpers and finishing the easy shots, you're not going to stay with them. We just weren't hitting our shots down the stretch when it mattered."

The Urban Knights went head-to-head tonight with a Dixie State Redstorm team that has dropped just one match thus far in their season. It was ART U that jumped out to the early lead with an Alisa Griggs steal and lay-up to put the Redstorm on their heels within the first minute of the game. Dixie answered with a 20-4 run over the next eight minutes which put them up by 14 points, 20-6.

After a timeout call by Head Coach Lindsey Yamasaki the Urban Knights regained their composure and started to gradually chip away at their sizable lead. ART U scored five straight points to cut the lead back to single digits with 10:45 on the clock. The Urban Knights didn't stop there, fueled by senior Jasmine English the Academy of Art women's basketball team cut the Redstorm lead to three points with six minutes left in the half. Back-to-back Dixie State 3-pointers extended their lead back to 11 and then eventually to their largest lead of the half, 20, just before the half retired. English capped the half with a lay-up to send ART U into the locker down 18 points, 23-41.

Although the Urban Knights were only outscored by eight points in the second half the damage of the first half was too great for ART U to overcome. The Redstorm used the scoring of multiple players to coast to the 50-76 win. On the whole the Urban Knights were out shot 28-19. For the game their 31.1% shooting percentage was no match for DSC's 49%. ART U was also out rebounded, 41-29. The Urban Knights did, however, cause 25 Redstorm turnovers and registered 22 bench points.

For Dixie State Johnna Brown led all player with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Breann Hill finished with 15 points, was 6-9 from the field and 6-6 from the free-throw line. Gabriella Rodriquez chipped in with 13 points and five assists.

Jasmine English paced the Urban Knights with 12 points, was 5-7 from the floor, and managed a career high five blocks. "I was really proud of Jasmine tonight, she played extremely hard, hit clutch shots and was our go to player all night," said Yamasaki. "She has cone so far, and all of her hard work paid off tonight. If anything good came from tonight's loss it was her breakout performance!"

Nicole DeRosier and Alisa Griggs finished with nine points apiece for the Urban Knights, while Griggs added four rebounds and DeRosier dished out five assists.

ART U returns to the floor Thursday January 20 with a conference match against Grand Canyon University. Game time is set for 1:00 PM.