SAN FRANCISCO — In a rematch of last year's PacWest Conference Tournament final, California Baptist University put up a hard fight, but ultimately fell 76-68 to Academy of Art Tuesday night.
The Lancers fall to 8-2 on the season, 1-1 in conference, while the Urban Knights improve to 7-3 overall and 2-0 in the PacWest.
Darsha Burnside proved to be the better of the top PacWest bigs, grabbing a game-high 17 rebounds to go with her 14 points, shooting 7-for-14 from the floor. Her counterpart and last year's conference player of the year, Krystal Forthan, finished the night with a similar 14 points, but only grabbed nine boards.
Courtney Nelson led the Lancers with 15 points (7-for-16), while
Kamille Diaz (5-for-13) and
Cassidy Mihalko (4-for-10) rounded out the Lancers' top-four scorers with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
Chanel Cambronero dished out a game-high seven assists to keep her team in the game.
From the get-go, a back-and-forth battle commenced as neither team could go up by more than one possession until ArtU led 14-8. Burnside cut the run with a jumper and initiated an 11-0 run for CBU. The junior accounted for more than half of the points, scoring six for the Lancers.
CBU tried to keep momentum rolling, but the Urban Knights fought back and held a 33-31 lead at halftime. Coming out of the break, Mihalko tied things up at 33-33, but the Lancers soon saw themselves trailing 43-38.
Fighting back, CBU took back the lead at 48-46 on a three-pointer from Diaz. The lead didn't last long, however, as ArtU tied things back at 50-50. Diaz answered back with five consecutive points to give the visitors a 55-50 lead—all within the first five minutes of the second half.
The Urban Knights evened things back up at 64-64, building intensity heading down the stretch. After ArtU took the lead at 68-66, Diaz tied the score for the last time at 68-68 with two and a half minutes left to play.
Despite trying to foul back into the game, CBU couldn't get its shots to fall as the Urban Knights won the game 76-68.
The Lancers will look to shake off the loss, turning around to face Dominican in just two days on Thursday. CBU then concludes 2014 action on Saturday, taking on Notre Dame de Namur.
