SAN FRANCISCO – Stepping onto the court for one final time in 2018, Academy of Art honored its senior trio, redshirt libero Lyndsay Mlynar, setter Alana Lucas, and outside hitter Safua Elisaia, prior to matching up with Dominican on Monday night. Though the end result was a 3-0 (30-28, 25-20, 25-18) victory for the Penguins, each of the seniors had their moment to display their talents for family and friends in front of a sizable Senior Night crowd.

"Each one brings something different to the team," said head coach Allen McCreary. "They accepted the challenge of playing under a new head coach and have done a great job at making it their team. I love the way they have help the newcomers. They will be missed."

Riding early momentum from an emotional ceremony prior to the match, ART U came out and quickly gained a 6-3 advantage on three kills from sophomore outside hitter Ashley Pawlak and the 77th service ace of Lucas' career. The Penguins would battle back to take a 14-10 lead and, though a pair of kills off the hand of junior opposite Kiersten Kerch helped cut the margin to a single point at 16-15, Dominican tried to initially pull away with a 5-0 run. That was met, however, with seven unanswered from the Urban Knights including a kill by sophomore middle blocker Sadie Emery and an ace by Pawlak to retake the lead 22-21. The visitors would rally to force set point at 24-22, but Elisaia's kill plus a Dominican error evened the contest. The Penguins had two more set points that were fended off and Academy of Art even found itself with two set points of its own at 27-26 and 28-27, but it was not until a three-point swing that Dominican managed to capture the set 30-28.

The PacWest Freshman of the Week middle blocker Jillian Wheaton was on absolute fire to open the second set, blocking the first point then putting away three straight kills for ART U. The Penguins, on the other hand, played the Knights close and managed to rally for a 15-12 advantage. That three-point margin could unfortunately not be overcome as bursts by Academy of Art were consistently equalized and, on its second set point, Dominican completed the 25-20 win to gain a two-set advantage.

A one-point third set at 6-5 shifted to 11-6 in favor of the Penguins, but Pawlak briefly caught fire with two kills and a service ace to make it 12-10. A 6-2 push by Dominican forced the issue though Pawlak again put down back-to-back kills to keep ART U alive. It the late stages, however, the visitors rattled off five of the final seven points to earn the sweep with a 25-18 end result in the third.

The Knights, now 1-27 overall this season and 1-19 in conference play, were paced by 12 kills from Pawlak along with six digs. Wheaton offered seven kills on a .400 hitting percentage and Elisaia also finished with seven kills to go with seven digs. Kerch added six kills, Reinhold amassed 24 assists, and Mlynar provided 15 digs.

For Dominican, it was 15 kills by Kate Even and 13 from Brittania Chan that propelled Dominican to an 8-17 overall record (6-14 in PacWest).

Two more matches await Academy of Art in Southern California this weekend. The trip will begin with Concordia on Friday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. in Irvine followed by a 1 p.m. matchup versus Biola in La Mirada on Saturday, Nov. 10.