BOX SCORE

It was a tale of two halves as the Prairie View A&M Panthers held off a second-half charge by Alcorn State during a 55-47 conference victory on Thursday evening in the Baby Dome.

The Panthers (5-10, 1-1 SWAC) played a solid first half as junior Marcellus Jackson led the Panthers with 11 points and six rebounds as they outscored the Braves 20-6 in the final 9:51 of the half en route to a 30-20 halftime advantage.  Prairie View scored 18 points off of 14 ASU turnovers in addition to recording six blocks defensively.    

The lead grew to as much as 19 (42-23) with 12:19 remaining in the second half after junior center Mayol Riathin hit a turnaround jumper in the paint.  However, everything went wrong for the Panthers after Riathin's jumper as Prairie View struggled from that point.

The Panthers went 0-of-8 from the field and committed 11 turnovers during a 10-minute span that saw Alcorn State go on a 20-2 run which trimmed PV's lead to 44-43 with 3:04 left on the clock.  At the 2:21 mark, ASU had an opportunity to move ahead but came up short at the basket and PV finally broke the drought on Jourdan DeMuynck's jumper 15 seconds later for a 46-43 margin.  Jarvis Moore missed a three-point attempt on the ensuing possession which forced ASU to foul from that point.  The Panthers came through from the charity stripe over the final 1:43 as they shot 7-of-8 to create some much-needed separation en route to their first SWAC win of the season.

Scott scored a career-high 18 points in his third career start while Jackson followed with 12 points, three blocks and a team-high eight rebounds in his first career start.  Jules Montgomery led PV with four blocks while Ronald Wright dished out two assists.

Xavian Rimmer led ASU with 14 points followed by 10 from Ken McDonald.

Prairie View makes the short trek to Houston on Saturday as they'll play SWAC foe Texas Southern at 6:30 p.m. in the H&PE Arena on the campus of TSU.