Box Score HONOLULU — Junior guard
Jasmin Guinn showed Saturday that she truly enjoyed her trip to Hawaii, notching her third straight 20-point game in as many contests on the islands as the Academy of Art women's basketball team closed its regular season with a 69-59 Pacific West Conference victory over Chaminade at McCabe Gym.
Guinn's 21 points Saturday gave her a 24.0 points per game average during the three-game road trip to Hawaii. Junior guards
Regina Camera and
Zoie Sheng were also scored in double figures with 15 and 10, respectively. The Urban Knights' (18-10, 13-7 PacWest) win secured them the No. 5 seed in next week's PacWest Conference Tournament after Azusa Pacific won earlier in the day to clinch the No. 4 spot.
Academy of Art built up a six-point lead through the opening six and a half minutes, but the Silverswords did not let the Knights gain much separation. ART U's defense turned into offense by way of frequent steals and transition buckets with Guinn's theft and follow-up jumper at 8:30 a prime example. However, guided by their seniors playing in their final collegiate game, Chaminade did not fade and the matchup was tied 25-25 late in the half.
Following Sheng free throws, Camera connected on back-to-back 3-pointers for a huge boost as halftime approached. A pair of jumpers, including one by Kennedi Akana in the final seven seconds still kept the Silverswords close as the period came to an end with Academy of Art up 37-32.
Chaminade nearly overcame the ART U margin early in the second half, but free throws as well as a Guinn triple quickly pushed the lead back to nine at 47-38. A 7-0 Swords run in which Academy of Art did not score for over two minutes continued to keep things close yet the Knights remained mentally tough. It was Sheng who posted a block to lead her into a basket on the other end along with jumpers by Camera that keyed a 10-0 surge to help ART U pull away.
"It wasn't our best shooting game so our defense had to step up to keep us in it," said head coach
LaNay Larson. "We gave up way too many possessions with sloppy play offensively, but I thought down the stretch we looked much more composed. We got the lead to a comfortable margin and were able to finish out the game."
Up 14 with 2:45 left following a bucket by sophomore forward
D'Andree Galipeau, Academy of Art maintained the advantage the rest of the way and defeated the Silverwords to become a perfect 13-0 in the historical matchup.
In their regular season finale, Chaminade (7-17, 7-13 PacWest) was led by Lilia Maio's 15 points and a double-double (14 points, 12 rebounds) from Katie Buskey.
ART U heads to Irvine next week for the PacWest Conference Championship Tournament where they are set to play Azusa Pacific on Thursday, Mar. 5 inside Concordia University Arena.
"Azusa is playing really well right now and it's hard to beat a team three times," said Larson. "We have to fine tune some things this week and we are going to go into the tournament one game at a time with our best shot."
