BOX SCORE

BATON ROUGE, La. - The Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers recovered from a slow start and outscored Southern by 21 points in the second half to cruise to a 73-53 victory Thursday night in the F.G. Clark Activity Center in Baton Rouge, La.

Prairie View A&M went on an a three-minute, 11-2 run that was capped off by a Jeanette Jackson fastbreak layup with 13:40 left in the game to give the Lady Panthers a 44-36 lead, which completely stunned the Lady Jaguars. Prairie View A&M expanded the lead to 10 points with 10:54 left following a JaQuandria Williams' mid-range jumper. Kiara Etienne's jumper with 7:06 left in the game was the dagger to the jugular of the Jaguars. It gave the Lady Panthers a decisive 58-45 lead that the Jaguars were not able to recover from.

LaReahn Washington extended the Lady Panthers' lead to as much as 21 points after a layup and converted free throw after a foul with 1:10 left which gave the Lady Panthers a 72-51 lead. Prairie View improved to 10-7 in SWAC play after taking down Southern and overtaking Grambling State for the No. 5 seed.

“We made plays when we needed it," Prairie View A&M head coach Toyelle Wilson said. “It was a great win for us going into Alcorn and trying to solidify that number four or five seed.”

The Lady Panthers had four players score in the double figures led by Etienne's 22-point performance. Freshman forward Larissa Scott also recorded her second double-double of the season with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

“It was huge,” Wilson said. “Everybody contributed. Kiara had to shoot her way out of a slump. She is from Louisiana. Her family was here. It was like a homecoming for her. She exploded and hit shots when we needed it.”

The Lady Panthers took their first lead of the game when Etienne hit a running floater with 19:02 left in the fist half to give her team a 33-32 lead. That was part of a 12-5 run that spanned from the final three minutes of the first half to the first two minutes of the second half.

The Lady Panthers struggled to stop Southern in the paint and couldn't get anything going offensively in the first 10  minutes of the game.

Southern jumped out to a 23-12 lead following a three from Kendra Coleman, who had nine  points from downtown in the first half. However, in the final 10 minutes of the half, Prairie View outscored the Lady Jaguars 19-9, riding the efforts of Latia Williams and JaQuandria Williams, who combined to score 15 first-half points. JaQuandria Williams had six points in four minutes off the bench in the first half as the Lady Panthers entered the locker room trailing 32-31.

Prairie View will head to Alcorn State, Miss. to take on Alcorn State in the final game of the regular season on Saturday, March 3 with a scheduled 2 p.m. tip-off.