SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican women's volleyball played one of its best matches of the year but fell short in a 3-1 loss Monday night to Academy of Art at the Conlan Center.

Avery Schneider led the Penguins with 15 kills on a .407 hitting percentage with two aces. Ella Heckman added 12 kills and Jasmine Heyward finished with 11 as Dominican had a season high 49 kills. Amalie Rupertova led the Urban Knights with 20 kills and five digs while Elly McInerney finished with 45 assists.

Nina Garcia helped get ART U started strong as an ace highlighted an early 3-0 run, but Schneider had back-to-back kills for the Penguins to spark their offense to a 6-5 lead. Rupertova answered with a kill of her own to swing the momentum back to the Urban Knights as Ainsley Robare capped the 4-point run with an ace to take the three-point lead. Dominican slowly chipped away until Schneider once again found the floor to tie the set 11-11, but a block from Katherine Von Kraut and Garcia's second ace of the set powered a 4-0 ART U run to retake the lead. Trailing late, the Penguins used several Urban Knight errors to go on a 5-1 run and close to within one but Von Kraut found the floor on a kill and Academy of Art closed out the 25-21 set victory.

Dominican opened strong in the second set as Kendall Kibanoff highlighted an early 7-1 run to take the five-point advantage. The Penguins did a good job of controlling the set preventing the Urban Knights from going on any runs while adding back-to-back points several times with Shneider finding the floor on back-to-back attempts to give them a large lead of seven at 18-11. Rupertova capped off a 5-1 run for ART U with two kills of her own to close the gap to three, but Dominican tightened up its play and traded points to the 25-20 victory to tie the match at one set apiece.

The third set saw the teams trade 3-0 runs to begin the set with Garcia topping a 3-0 run for the Urban Knights with an ace to take a 6-3 lead. Schneider continued to lead the way for Dominican as she found the floor with another kill before Sophia Hull capped off the 4-0 run with an ace to take a 1-point lead in the set. The teams began to trade points until Isaura Santos put down a kill to spark a 3-0 run for Academy of Art to retake a 14-13 advantage. The Urban Knights slowly added to its lead pushing it to three, but Dominican began to chip away and Amani Abed used a powerful swing for a kill to tie the set 19-19. After trading the next few points, Jillian Wheaton found the floor on a kill and Santos served up an ace to give the ART U some breathing room as it finished off a 25-22 set victory. 

The teams continued to trade runs and points to open the fourth set until Abed had a kill inside a block before Schneider found the floor on her next two swings to take the 12-10 lead. The Penguins answered the next two Urban Knight runs, but Rupertova had back-to-back kills to spark a 5-0 run that swung the lead back to ART U at 19-16. Dominican kept trying to battle back but found themselves facing match point at 24-21. Justine Pulmones placed a back-row attack in the perfect spot to stave off the first match point and Schneider followed up with her 15th kill of the night to close back within one but Rupertova finally closed the door with a kill to give ART U the match.

Dominican will head south for one last road trip beginning with Point Loma Nazarene University on Friday at 6 p.m. PDT at Golden Gymnasium.