Box Score
San Francisco, CA -- The Academy of Art University women's volleyball team has had its moments in the 2013 season where they have been dominant, picking apart the opposition and racking up the points. But, as sometimes happens with a younger team, the Urban Knights have trouble being able to sustain that pace throughout an entire game, as they did on Friday night, falling to Fresno Pacific University in three sets by scores of 25-18, 25-15, 25-23.

The first set was a close one, as the Knights and Sunbirds were tied at 8-8, but FPU started to pull away, going on a 7-1 run that made it 15-9. That run continued on as Fresno Pacific eventually made it a 21-13 game, but the Knights started to claw their way back into it. With Kanoe Irvine serving, ART U benefited from four straight attack errors to get back into contention with the score at 21-17, but three straight points from the Sunbirds put it at set point and the PacWest's leading hitter Rupia Inck ended the first set with a kill.

The late run was something that came up for the Urban Knights throughout the night. In the second set, the Sunbirds seemed to pick up a couple points for every hideout the Knights were able to get, and even though it was relatively close at 16-10, the Sunbirds pulled away to seal it on another kill from Inck to make it a two-set advantage.

The third set saw the Knights with a leads they tied the game with Rachael Smith serving six times in a row to make it 10-9, and then again had another run with Brittany Ulmer serving on four straight errors from Inck to give ART U a 20-19 lead. Following that though, the Sunbirds got three points in a row to make it 22-20, and the two teams traded points until an attack from Emily Papale came up short, and the Sunbirds prevailed 25-23.

Papale would lead the Knights with 10 kills, her 15th match this year with double-digit kills. Rachael Smith had 26 assists, which pushed her over the 1000-assist milestone for the first time in her career (1005) and giving her the second-best setting season in terms of total assists in ART U history. Caitlin Boring added seven kills to push her over another plateau, the 400-kill mark in her career for the Knights. FPU's Morghan Williams led all hitters with 14 kills, while Rebecca Waller had 13 and Inck added 12 in the winning effort.

The Knights play their final home game on Saturday, facing Notre Dame de Namur in the Senior Day, celebrating Boring's four-year career at Academy of Art as their lone senior.