TOMBALL, Texas – After rain kept them off the field for six days, the Prairie View A&M Panthers opened their home schedule Saturday not too far from their home.
 
Though the day brought clear skies and pleasant weather, Tankersley Field was still not available for play, so the Panthers were forced to turn their Saturday doubleheader with Southern into a single, nine-inning game at the Premier Baseball of Texas complex.
 
The change of venue did not adversely affect the sizable crowd of Panther fans; however, it was Southern's J'Markus George who stole the spotlight, striking out 14 batters and scattering four hits en route to a complete-game, 9-2 Jaguars victory.
 
The Jaguars (3-9), evened their record in the Southwestern Athletic Conference's West Division to 2-2. Prairie View A&M (4-8) fell to 2-2.
 
Southern catcher Jose DeLa Torre hit what turned out to be the game-winning run with a two-run home run in the third inning. Dondrayas Harris gave the Jaguars insurance runs with a grand slam in the top of the fourth inning.
 
The Panthers broke through in the fifth inning when Darrien Williams led off with a double to left-centerfield, and then moved to third base on Edgar Sanchez' single. After Jaron Hicks hit a sacrifice bunt to move Sanchez to third, Williams then came home on Brashad Jones' RBI groundout. Nick Gurka then hit an infield single to score Sanchez, and cut the Southern lead to 7-2.
 
Williams would collect the only other Panthers hit of the game with a single in the ninth inning. PVAMU would threaten again in the final inning, loading the bases with two outs, but George induced the final out of the game on an infield groundout on his 163rd pitch of the evening.
 
Edward Robledo struck out three Southern hitters of two and one-thirds innings of relief; he was charged for only one run, which was unearned. Kaylor Lewis struck out two batters in his PVAMU mound debut.
 
Phillip Gay pitched the eighth and ninth innings for PVAMU, tossing two scoreless frames. Starting pitcher Charles Philpott struck out five Jaguars, but walked six and was hit for seven runs, six of them earned.
 
The Panthers and Jaguars conclude their series Sunday at 1 p.m. on the Prairie View A&M campus. The third game of the series will not be played this weekend due to travel and weekly schedule concerns for Southern.