SAN FRANCISCO – While Academy of Art women's soccer was able to find the first score of the match, Fresno Pacific would respond with two goals within minutes of each other early in the second half to take the game in Pacific West Conference action with a final score of 2-1 on Senior Day. 

Prior to all of the action, the Urban Knights honored their five seniors with a pregame ceremony in Hannah Moore, Morgan Day, Raquel Calvo Mendez, Katie Williams, and Brooklyn Villapudua. ART U, now 1-11-0 overall and 0-6-0 in the PacWest, scored their earliest goal in a match all season on their first shot of the day, with freshman midfielder Mackenzie Dowd sending a low through ball into the box towards Villapudua, who went it across the box with sophomore forward Danielle Medellin who cleaned it up for the tap-in goal to take the 1-0 lead in just the ninth minute. 

While the Sunbirds were down for the rest of the first half, they kept the pressure on, shooting at goal 16 times while getting none to find the back of the net. The Knights' defense held tough, not allowing quality strikes at net with seven of those not making their way on target. For the Sunbirds' other shots on frame, sophomore goalkeeper Alicia Calderon played a clean first half as she recorded a save for all nine, keeping the one-goal lead as ART U headed into the break.

Just six minutes into the second half, FPU were awarded a corner kick with Nadia Flores set up to take it. After the pass into the box, Cadence Cunha used her body to push the ball in past the goalkeeper, tying the match up at 1-1. Less than two minutes later, Cunha once again sent a ball over towards the net, this time from the outer edge of the box, and soared it just under the crossbar and in for her second goal, as FPU now led 2-1.

ART U would go on to take four more shots from four different Urban Knights before the end of the match, including ones from junior defender Haley Vaughan, junior defender Valeria Perez Rivera, Villapudua, and Moore, but none were converted with the Sunbirds' goalkeeper playing tight defense with their narrow lead. Fresno Pacific would improve to 2-9-1 overall and 1-3-1 in conference after their win.

ART U will play one more match at home, hosting Lincoln (Calif.) on Tuesday, Oct. 17 with a kickoff slated for 1 p.m. from Paul Goode Field, before heading on the road for the rest of their 2023 campaign.