SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican women's basketball built a large lead and held on for a 57-48 victory over Academy of Art on Monday evening at the Conlan Recreation Center.
 
Abby Cooper led the Penguins (19-9, 13-4 PacWest) 14 points and eight rebounds. Taylor Linzie added a game-high 14 rebounds while Alaiyah San Juan finished with 10 points, six assists and five rebounds. Violet Stutz led the Urban Knights with 10 points and four rebounds. Dominican did an excellent job taking care of the basketball committing nine turnovers while forcing 20 turnover on Academy of Art.
 
The rims were not forgiving in the first quarter as Alba Rovira scored a baseline jumper for the first and only basket of the quarter for the Urban Knights. San Juan stole the ball and threw it ahead to Cooper for a fast break layup on the other end to tie the game and Andraya Perez made a long 3-pointer to push Dominican ahead. Taylor Linzie laid it in on another San Juan assist to make it 7-2 with 5:59 remaining in the quarter and nobody would score until a pair of Cooper free-throws with 16 seconds left in the period.
 
Cooper opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer from the left elbow and Alyssa Alvarado knocked down a stepback jumper from just inside the arc to push the Dominican run to 14-0. The teams traded the next few bakers until Alvarado connected behind the arc and San Juan again stole the ball and threw ahead to Cooper to extend the Penguin lead to 21-6 with 5:24 left in the half. ART U finally connected from behind the arc as Violet Stutz cut the deficit to 11 with two minutes remaining. The teams traded buckets down the stretch and Dominican led 28-17 at the break.
 
The Urban Knights were able to slowly cut into the lead as Clair Ricard knocked down a 3-pointer to make it 31-22 with 5:25 remaining in the quarter. Lucia Revenga and Karereatua Williams made back to back layups to trim the lead to six three minutes later, but Andraya Perez hit a stepback 3-pointer to make it 38-29 Penguins with two minutes left in the quarter. San Juan spun around a defender to beat the buzzer on an acrobatic layup to send Dominican into the fourth leading 40-33.
 
San Juan played a little give-and-go with Perez for a midrange jumper to push the lead back to nine on the first possession of the final quarter. San Juan then kicked it out to Perez for a 3-pointer to push the lead back into double-digits a minute later. San Juan converted a 3-point play to keep the run going and then a foul and a technical gave the Penguins 3-points from the charity stripe before Alvarado buried a shot from the left corner to push the lead to 54-34 with five minutes left in the game. Linzie hit a stepback jumper from the top of the key to beat the shot clock and give Dominican a game-high 22 points. Dominican brought in its reserves to close the game.
 
The Penguins will conclude its regular season home games as it faces University of Hawai'i at Hilo on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. PST.