SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican women's basketball used a superb fourth quarter to pull away for a 69-60 victory Monday night after a seesaw battle of runs with Azusa Pacific for the first 30 minutes at the Conlan Center.

Mahliya Wilson led the Penguins (17-5, 11-5 PacWest) with 18 points, most in the second half, to go with seven rebounds. The bench also came up big for Dominican with Janiya Sawyer finishing with 16 points with Isobel Crosswhite adding 11 points. Elyse Mitchell led the Cougars (17-6, 13-3 PacWest) with 21 points, with Keisharna Lucas chipping in 13 points and nine boards. The Penguins hit 45.9% of its shots from the field while holding APU to 30.4% shooting.

Janiya Sawyer opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer from the left corner, and her twin Jamia Sawyer watched the lane open up for an easy layup to push the lead to 47-42 and end the 11-1 run. Dominican continued to press its advantage down low with Janiya Sawyer driving for a layup before Julianne Cotterill posted up and turned past her defender for a layup to make it 59-50 with five minutes left. Wilson connected on a putback to give the Penguins their first double digit lead and then sank another pull-up jumper pushing the lead to 65-53 heading into the final two minutes of the game.

The Cougars started strong opening the game on an 8-1 run as Rome Falcocchia scored the first four points of the game. Dominican through began to creep back into the game as  Crosswhite came off the bench and provided some offensive spark with a short jumper. Janiya Sawyer put in some work down low scoring four of the next six points as The Penguins quickly closed the gap to 13-12 heading to the second quarter.

It was a similar start in the new period for APU as Mitchell connected from distance early and then capped the 9-point run with a short jumper to push the lead to 22-12 with six minutes left in the half. After the Cougars expanded their lead to 12 on a small run, Dominican began its march back with Crosswhite scoring the final five points of the half to cut the deficit to 28-23 at the break.

Wilson found her stroke in the second half blowing past defenders in the lane for a pair of layups before Kaylyn Buchanon used a nice screen to tie the game at 30-30 on a driving layup with 7:11 left in the third. APU slowly built back its lead as Nivia Glorioso laid it in to take a 41-35 lead with 2:11 remaining. Janiya Sawyer scored five of the final seven points of the quarter for the Penguins including a 3-point play to end the period and tie the game 42-42. 

Dominican will not wait long for its next game as it faces Biola on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PST in the Conlan Center.