Over the weekend, the Prairie View A&M baseball squad took their game south to the Rio Grande Valley to take on the Scorpions of UT-Brownsville and the host school, the UT-Pan American Broncs.
On Friday, Feb. 26, the Panthers opened up their four game weekend with a 5-1 loss at the hands of the Broncs of UT-Pan American.
The scoring started in the bottom of the second as the Broncs plated three runs, aided by two errors by the Prairie View defense.
The first, committed by center fielder Brandon Brooks, put two runners on with nobody out and the second, by third baseman Andre Oliver, allowed a run to score.
The next batter for UT-Pan American, Jose Mendoza hit a single up the middle off starter Benjamin Blackburn to score two more.
Although the pitching kept the game close for the majority of the game, the Prairie View offense could only muster three hits with the only run coming on a RBI double by catcher Evan Richard.
On Saturday, the Panthers took the field again to take on the Scorpions of UT-Brownsville.
This game yielded the first Panther win of the year as they came from behind to win 5-4. Down 4-2 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning, the Panther offense finally made some noise by getting three hits and scoring the tying two runs off Scorpion relief pitcher Dennis Ortiz.
In the bottom of the ninth, Salvador Hernandez reached on an error as an errant throw to first base pulled the defender off the bag.
Following the error, Andre Oliver drove a pitch into the left-center field gap that allowed Hernandez to score the winning run all the way from first and give the Panthers a good quality win.
After their first win earlier in the day, the Panthers took the field again to take on the Broncs of UTPA for a second time. Perhaps gassed from the emotional win earlier in the day, the Broncs jumped on the Panthers by scoring runs in the second, third, and fourth innings for a 4-0 lead.
The Panthers scored a run in the top of the fifth on a RBI single by Richard, but the Broncs put the game away with two runs in the seventh and eighth innings to win 9-2.
On Sunday, the Panthers wrapped up their weekend with a loss to UT-Brownsville, 11-8.
The Scorpions started hot right away with a four run first, highlighted by a home run by Matt Ginn.
The Panther offense quickly responded by tying the game in the bottom of the third inning.
Ginn hit his second home run of the game in the fifth to take the lead back but the Panthers quickly responded in the bottom half of the inning to tie the game at six and the Panther offense tied the game at eight in the bottom of the sixth.
However, the Scorpion offense was too much for the Panthers as they scored the go-ahead run in the seventh and two more insurance runs in the eighth.
Although they finished with a 1-3 record, the Panthers again showed good resolve and resilience as they continually came back to apply pressure to their opponents.