Box Score SAN DIEGO – A rough shooting night for Academy of Art University Women's Basketball put the Urban Knights behind Point Loma early, leading to the Sea Lions' 75-58 Pacific West Conference victory on Wednesday evening. ART U scored 17 points off 22 turnovers and outscored PLNU in the second period, could not come back from the 44-26 halftime deficit.
"We knew it was a tough trip going in and we expended a lot of energy in the comeback against Azusa Pacific," said head coach
LaNay Larson. "We came into tonight's game with some tired legs and it showed in our shooting."
An evenly played contest in the opening minutes, Academy of Art went up 10-7 after junior guard
Jasmin Guinn found fellow junior guard
Sha'Nice Storey for a 3-pointer. However, four consecutive layups by Point Loma started a 13-1 response which would put the home team up for an initial cushion. After a triple from redshirt junior guard
Vianai Austin cut the margin to six at 26-20, PLNU went on a decisive 16-0 run to go up by 22 late in the period.
Coming out of a 44-26 halftime score, junior guard
Zoie Sheng contributed five quick points for ART U and midway through junior center
Caron Brown added four straight, but the margin continued to hover around 20 points the rest of the way. In the end, the Knights' Southern California roadtrip concluded with Point Loma on top 75-58.
The Urban Knights are now 10-6 on the year and 5-3 in PacWest play. Storey's 17 points led the way and were backed up by Sheng's 10 points as well as nine points and nine rebounds from Brown. Guinn stuffed the stat sheet once again with seven points, five rebounds, five assists, and five steals.
Point Loma's record moves to 7-8 overall and 5-3 in the PacWest after Jessica Escorza's double-double in the form of 20 points and 10 rebounds.
"We need to eliminate the mental mistakes and put ourselves in a better situation with a shortened rotation, but I'm confident in this team and their ability to bounce back," said Larson. "We will work on the adjustments that we need to make and have some people step up and fill in gaps."
Academy of Art returns to home competition on Monday, Jan. 19 to begin a five-game homestand starting with Chaminade.
