SAN FRANCISO – At the halfway point of conference play, Saturday's showdown had a late season feel.
Azusa Pacific used a strong second half to post an 84-72 win over previously PacWest undefeated Academy of Art.
With the win the Cougars jumps into a first place tie with the Urban Knights in the loss column. Azusa Pacific moves to 15-3 overall and 9-1 in league games. Academy of Art's record slides to 15-6 and 10-1 respectively.
"It was hard fought game. I thought we were deeper than them and so we wanted to keep pressuring them. I thought our depth and our style of play wore them down during the second half," said head coach T.J. Hardeman. "It is nice to rotate players through the game like we can. We had a number of players set-up and play really well. We felt prepared and we were able to able to execute our game plan."
Leading the way for the Cougars was Kelly Hardeman's double-double. The senior scored a team high 17 points while corralling 16 rebounds. Cydnie Jones continued her strong play at the point guard position with a 16-point afternoon. The double figure scorers were rounded out by Maggie Dumphy's and Allison Greene's 15-point performances.
Azusa Pacific's bench outscored the Urban Knights 16-5. Elena Ala led the role players with a six points in 26 minutes off the bench.
"They are a really solid offensive rebounding team and a key goal was to hold them to one shot. Even though they got 15 second chances, I'm pleased with our performance," T.J. Hardeman said.
Despite those Academy of Art offensive rebounds, the Cougars held a 17-11 edge in second chance points.
The opening two quarters were played as tightly as to be expected. Aside from a very early five point lead for the Cougars, neither team was ahead by more than three points in the initial periods. Azusa Pacific held those leads at 22-19 and, again, at 27-24 but the home team stayed with one possession of the lead.
After the first 20 minutes, each team hit 15 of their 37 field goal attempts (40.5 percent) with three of their made attempts coming from behind the arc. The game was tied five times and had 11 lead changes during the opening stanza.
Azusa Pacific grabbed control of the game in the third quarter. A 22-7 scoring run during the frame was capped off by a Lauren Gilster lay-up with just under a minute left to give her team a 60-45 lead.
The Urban Knights closed the frame with six straight points as Azusa Pacific took a 60-51 lead with 10 minutes left.
Points during the early minutes of the final quarter were tough to come by until Academy of Art got rebound and put back by Regina Camera with 7:28 left. The Urban Knight were down 62-55 at that point but for every home team attempt to gain the lead the Cougars were there to thwart it. Academy of Art got within seven points four times in the final quarter but never any closer. With five minutes left Allison Greene nailed a three pointer to spark a 12-4 Azusa Pacific scoring run to seal the game.
On Monday evening the Cougars will look to close out their three-game Bay Area trip undefeated as they take on Dominican at 5:30 p.m.
"They are good team and they are going to give us a challenge. It's tough to get three wins on a road trip like this but we are going to embrace the challenge," T.J. Hardeman said.
