SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's baketball team remained in the hunt for the PacWest Championships on Saturday with a 71-63 victory over Academy of Art.

The Penguins improved to 13-12 overall and 9-9 in PacWest play. The Penguins are fighting for the final spots in the six-team PacWest Championships. Chaminade and Fresno Pacific also won on Saturday to move to 9-9 in PacWest play. BYU-Hawaii is 10-8 while Point Loma is 8-9 and UH Hilo is 8-10.

Dominican led wire-to-wire and staked its lead early with a 6-0 start over the first four minutes. The lead grew to 17 with under four minutes to go in the first half, though the Urban Knights trimmed the halftime lead to 36-25.

ART U actually outscored Dominican in the second half despite the Penguins shooting 11-of-19 (57.9 percent) and limiting ART U to 10-of-26 (38.5 percent) second half shooting. The Urban Knights threatened with a 7-0 lead that cut the lead to four with 12 minutes to go. An offensive foul gave the Urban Knights a chance to pull within two but Russell Davis grabbed a defensive rebound, then Reverend Maduakor found Davis for a corner three that pushed the lead back to seven. Dominican would lead by no fewer than five points the rest of the way.

Josh Ramirez led the Penguins with 13 points. Davis and Josh Armstrong came off the bench and each had 12 points in 27 minutes. It was a career-high for Davis, who was a perfect 4-of-4 from the field. Matt Hayes added 11 points with a game-high seven rebounds and a career-high three blocks. In doing so, he surpassed Sean Harmon's (1989-1993) 1,195 career points. David Moore (2002-06) still holds the program record with 1,795 points. With starter Seth Turner out with food poisoning, Christopher Schwartz-Edmisten slid into the starting lineup and scored eight points. He was honored in a pregame ceremony for joining the 1,000-point club.

The Urban Knights were led by Uchenna Okeneme's game-high 25 points. Cobe Williams came off the bench and added 14 points.

Monday, Feb. 22. marks the Penguins' final home game of 2015-16, at 7:30 p.m. versus Dixie State. Dominican's three seniors — Hayes, Karl Ohrner, Schwartz-Edmisten — will be honored in a pregame ceremony. Live stats and pay-per-view video will be available at dominicanathletics.com/live with live audio provided by Penguin Radio and the student broadcasters at radio.dominican.edu.