Panthers drop the ball at Southern tourney

 Prairie View A&M could not complete the comeback and dropped a 3-2 match to Southern on the road and fell to 1-1 in Southwestern Athletic Conference competition. The Lady Panthers lost the first two sets to Southern, but they rallied to take the next two sets and looked to have the momentum heading into the final set.
However, the Jaguars defeated Prairie View A&M 25-22, 25-19, 17-25, 24-26, 15-13.
Slow starts seemed to be the theme for the Lady Panthers in each set that they lost, including the fifth set. Southern jumped out to a 7-1 lead before Prairie View A&M corrected its mistakes to go on an 8-2 run to tie the game at 9-9 with a kill by senior outside hitter Charae Caldwell.
The Lady Panthers never took the lead, but they tied the set twice more at 12-12 and 13-13 before Southern won the final to points of the match on kill and then a block by middle Deyshia Burden.
Prairie View A&M mounted its comeback following the lead of senior middle blocker Janette Batista. She played her most effective game in a Lady Panthers uniform, accounting for a career-high of 19 kills and five blocks. She also finished with a team-high .350 attack percentage. She and fellow middle Magda Zietek (7 kills, 5 digs, 4 blocks) secured the front line for Prairie View A&M while their teammates did their parts to make a game out of an early two-set deficit.
In the third set, the Lady Panthers bounced back from sloppy play that plagued them in the first two sets and jumped out to a 16-9 lead. Southern fought back to within 16-13, but Prairie View A&M closed the set out with a 9-to-3 run. Batista accounted for two kills in the last four points for the Lady Panthers. Southern managed to keep Set 4 closer than the Lady Panthers wanted, but with the game tied at 24-24, Zietek came through with two clutch kills for Prairie View A&M in the 26-24 win.
Batista had a big first set for the Lady Panthers as they tried to claw back from a slow start. She tallied six kills off of 10 attacks and just one error as Prairie View A&M rallied from an early 14-5 deficit and embarked on a 13-to-5 run.
A service ace by Zietek got Prairie View A&M as close as one point trailing 19-18. However, the Lady Panthers were unable to get over the hump and dropped the first set 25-22. Prairie View A&M lost in similar fashion in the second set.
Senior setter Kelsey Espinosa had a season-high 42 assists in the loss, while junior outside Candyce Alexander provided a season-high of 16 digs. She and junior Libero LaKeisha Allen combined for 33 digs.
Prairie View (4-17, 1-1 SWAC) will try to bounce back from the loss the Southern Invitational Tournament. The team's first game begins at 8 a.m. vs. Grambling in Baton Rouge, La.