BATON ROUGE, La. – The Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers took a lead in the second half but couldn't keep it Saturday as they fell to Southern 67-51 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
Britney Washington came off the Southern bench to score a game-high 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting to lead the Lady Jaguars (3-8, 1-0 SWAC). Washington was 6-of-9 from the field and drained four out of her six 3-point attempts.
Shamiya Brooks scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting and grabbed six rebounds to lead the Lady Panthers (3-10, 0-1 SWAC), who lost their third consecutive conference opener to Southern.
Prairie View A&M's
Alexus Parker added 11 points for the Lady Panthers, while senior guard
Jeanette Jackson, the team's leading scorer, was held to eight points.
The Lady Panthers seized control of the game early in the second half by scoring 15 unanswered points between the 17:12 and 12:07 marks to establish a 42-34 lead. Prairie View A&M seemingly had all the momentum as the visitors forced six turnovers and four missed shots from Southern during that span.
Not helping matters for Southern was that the Lady Jaguars committed 10 of the first 11 fouls of the second half. However, the Lady Panthers did not make the most of those opportunities, as they shot made only eight out of their 14 free throw attempts (57 percent) in the second half.
Free throws were one of the deciding factors in the game, as the Jaguars shot 95 percent (18 of 19) from the line during the contest, while Prairie View A&M made only 55 percent of their charity shots (17 of 31).
After withstanding Prairie View A&M's second half run, the Lady Jaguars flexed their muscles over the remainder of the game by outscoring the Lady Panthers 28-5 over the last 11 minutes. Prairie View A&M made only one their last eight field-goal attempts during that span.
Washington was unstoppable during the second half, making all five of her field-goal attempts, four of them from behind the 3-point arc.
The Lady Panthers return to action Monday when they visit Alcorn State. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
