Box Score
Photo Gallery (images by Austin McKeon & Rob Garcia)

Azusa, CA – One day, two championships.

Just hours after Academy of Art University Women's Track & Field captured an NCAA Division II National Championship, ART U Women's Basketball came out winners of the inaugural Pacific West Conference Championship Tournament with a 75-49 victory over top-seeded Hawaii Pacific. The Urban Knights scored 49 second half points to come back from a halftime deficit and automatically punch their ticket to the first NCAA Tournament in program history.

"This is something we've strived for since the beginning of the year and the dream has become a reality," head coach LaNay Larson said. "It's a tribute to how hard this team has worked and the things they have overcome this season. To finish on a nine-game win streak and then to be dominant in that championship game just shows our mentality. The team was ready, we were focused, and we really locked down defensively. Defense and rebounding; that's where it started for us from day one and I thought we did an outstanding job of that tonight."

Scoring three layups in the first two minutes, ART U got ahead 6-2 though Hawaii Pacific would come back to tie it up 9-9. Senior Jordan Rogers then ignited a Knights 7-0 run with her triple which was followed by a rhythm jumper from senior Katy Wade.

After Rogers splashed another 3-pointer to put Academy of Art up by eight and junior Alisa Griggs later added a layup to make it nine, Hawaii Pacific responded by closing the first half on a 14-1 run to lead 30-26 at the break.

Though the Sea Warriors led for the first three minutes of the second half, ART U unleashed its comeback starting with a 13-1 run started by freshman Zoie Sheng's shot to beat the shot clock buzzer. Wade would add a tough layup and perhaps no sequence was more emotionally charged than senior Ariel Dale's three-point play which gave Academy of Art its first lead in more than seven minutes.

Freshman Jasmin Guinn then went on a roll all by herself, scoring a layup off an offensive rebound and then sprinting to the goal for another easy two off a steal by Griggs. The surge saw the Knights go from down six to up six, 42-36. ART U continued to apply pressure from that point forward as Griggs and senior Nicol Biesek scored in turn before a layup by Wade and a jumper by freshman Regina Camera made it a double-digit advantage, 50-40.

Academy of Art notched five steals in a three-minute span where ART U's energy level was simply unmatched. As the Knights began to smell the possibility of a PacWest Tournament championship, the shots just continued to fall. In what was eventually a 19-5 run to expand the margin, Rogers hit a pair of 3-pointers and repeatedly made HPU pay for leaving her the open look.

“We went in at halftime, talked to each other, and came together,” Rogers said. “We just went out hard in the second half. We started playing our game like we know we can play and that's when we just took the lead and ran with it.”

For an Urban Knights team that shot over 40 percent from distance in the second half, Sheng then found Camera for a triple to make it an 18-point margin with 5:17 left to play. A little over a minute later, Camera dialed up another from long range and the ART U lead soon grew to 20 points. The Urban Knights played some of their best basketball thus far to steadily outscore the opposition 33-11 in the final 13 minutes.

Four more points from Wade and Rogers' fifth triple of the evening capped off a dominant end result which featured tough defense that did not allow HPU to score for the final 3:38. ART U convincingly earned a 75-49 victory to claim the PacWest Conference Tournament title and make it nine consecutive wins, matching the Academy of Art University Athletics record set by the women's basketball program last season.

“I have five seniors and they mean the world to me,” Coach Larson said. “One was here when I got here and she experienced the struggles they went through before. And the other four transferred in my first year and they really believed in our system. They took a chance coming to Academy of Art, a program that hadn't had a winning season, and bought into the idea that we can win a championship here. That meant so much that they trusted me to come here and believe in this program has been unbelievably rewarding. I can't thank them enough and they deserved it. It is years of hard work and they have really made Academy of Art into a contender.”

ART U was absolutely unstoppable rebounding the ball in the win, finishing with a 51-34 difference on the boards to capture its 23rd win of the year. Rogers was named PacWest Tournament MVP following her game-high 17 points that included a 5-of-8 night from beyond the three-point arc.

"All I really wanted for my senior year was to win the tournament because I haven't accomplished anything like this in my four years of college," Rogers said. "So to get this win and championship was all I wanted."

Wade was one of two Knights to post a double-double (15 points, 11 rebounds) with Dale, also a member of the PacWest All-Tournament team, adding 13 points and 11 rebounds as well. Dale also registered a game-high five steals.

“It feels so good and I'm so excited,” Dale said. “It's the best feeling in the world. Like Jordan, in my years of college, we've come close, but we've never won a championship. To actually get it done, it takes so much hard work and we did it. I was on the court smiling because I knew it was coming. We had a hard game yesterday and a great game today and we finished it. The best part is that we executed and couldn't do anything better for Coach L.”

Camera was the lone freshman on the PacWest All-Tournament team and she contributed 13 points along with five rebounds.


“I knew coming into this program that, this year especially, we were capable of doing big things,” Camera said. I was so excited to be a part of that. Coming in, I knew I wanted to be a big asset to this team. It feels great doing this as a freshman, but it feels even better doing it for these seniors because they all wanted it so much. I'm really proud of all of them and proud of our team.”

Off the bench, Griggs delivered six points, six rebounds, and three steals while Sheng facilitated the offense beautifully once again, finishing with five points and four assists.

Hawaii Pacific, the top seeded team in the conference tournament, drops to 19-7 with the loss. The Sea Warriors were led by 13 points off the bench from Melody Ladrido, who battled through an injury at the end of the first half. Susannah Walmsley and Skye Savini each had nine points apiece as well.


Ready to enter the first NCAA Tournament in program history in just its first year as full NCAA members, ART U now awaits its next opponent and location which will be determined Sunday night. The NCAA Tournament Selection Show will air on www.NCAA.com at 7:00 PM PT and reveals the Knights opening-round matchup to be played on Saturday, Mar. 16.

"[Going to NCAA Regionals] is something we talked about at the beginning of the year," Coach Larson said. "It was our goal and I don't know how many people believed that except us, but the fact that it's actually happening right now, I think we're all on cloud nine. It's an unbelievable opportunity to get to the championship game and this is what we asked for. We went out and took care of business and now we don't have to worry about being on that bubble; we are an automatic bid. We are excited and this team is definitely playing really well right now so it'll be really fun to see what we can do."