Box Score

San Francisco, CA -- The Academy of Art University women's volleyball team returned to San Francisco to start the PacWest Conference schedule at home against Holy Names on Thursday, but were treated to a rude housewarming as the Hawks dampened the mood by handing the Knights a 3-0 loss. The Urban Knights battled back in the third and final set, but dropped the match by scores of 20-25, 15-25, and 25-27.

"We were not competing at a level we have proven to be able to compete at in the past," said head coach Ed Jackson. "We encouraged the team to fight and stay aggressive. Too many errors, and at the wrong times, made it difficult to win games."

The errors were key, as it seemed like the Hawks were stringing together points while the Knights were limited by their own mistakes. ART U made 12 errors in the first set alone, which matched the Hawks output for the whole match. They also had an uncharacteristic amount of service errors (9) that put a damper on any run that they attempted to build.

Academy of Art did pull it together for the third set, as they came out and answered the bell with some very important points to stay in the game. After getting down early at 7-3, they came right back and tied it up at 10-10. The game continued to be close all the way to the end, which saw the Urban Knights get it to a match point at 25-24 before Holy Names strung together three points to hold on for the victory.

"In the third set we had an improved desire to compete than the first two sets," said Jackson. "We served more aggressively and we were able to force Holy Names to make more errors."

And make more errors they did, as the Hawks were held to their lowest hitting percentage of the day in the third set. The Knights also got some production from their big hitters, as Holli "Ka'ena" Kaina had four kills in the final set and Lindsay Elgin had two of her six kills in the third frame. Those two combined for 15 kills and a .310 hitting percentage on the night. Taylor Suchy also had 10 kills and 10 digs for ART U.

"We have to learn from this match and move forward," said Jackson. "We know we are capable of competing at a higher level. Tomorrow we are going to have a good practice improving on what we learned from tonight and prepare for Saturday."

The Knights will travel across the Golden Gate Bridge to Dominican to take on the Lady Penguins at the Conlan Rec Center at 7:00 PM on Saturday. ART U has won five in a row against Dominican.