PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – The Prairie View A&M soccer team is heading into the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament as the No. 4 seed in the eight-team tournament, and will face No. 5 rival Texas Southern in the first round on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. on the beautiful campus of Prairie View A&M University.
 
Fans can watch the PVAMU-TSU matchup at pvpanthers.com/sportsnetwork.
 
"Our goal this year was to exceed the standards from the previous year," said Abe Garcia, Prairie View head soccer coach.  "We wanted to finish with a higher seed than we did last year, which we did, but our goal is to take one game at a time during this tournament.  We tell our girls to focus on Texas Southern on Thursday and then go from there.  We have been moving in the right direction, but now it's anybody's ball game."
 
The Lady Panthers (6-8-2, 6-6-2 SWAC) and Tigers (7-7-2, 6-3-1 SWAC) battled to a 2-0 finish in favor of PVAMU last Thursday in chilly conditions during homecoming week at Prairie View.
 
"This was a busy week," Garcia said.  "Another one of those weeks on 'how do we keep our kids focused, making sure their mind is focused on what we were trying to accomplish with so many activities going on around campus.' It wasn't easy.  Nevertheless, we were able to maintain and we were able to keep their minds on track to get the win."
 
Last season, the scenario was similar.  Prairie View A&M finished the regular season with Texas Southern and opened the 2016 championship against the cross town rival team, falling to TSU in the first round on a goal in the 88^th minute in a 1-0 decision.
 
"Texas Southern is a good team with good size," said Garcia.  "One of the things we had from last year that's fresh in our mind is that they came in here during the tournament and they just walked away like nothing.  This is something that we have been trying to instill in our kids that nobody comes on our turf and do what they want to do with us."
 
The Lady Panthers will host the three-day event for the second consecutive time.  The first-round of the tourney takes place on Thursday, Nov. 2 with No. 1 seed Alabama State vs. #8 seed Alcorn State at 10 a.m.  The Semi-finals will be held Friday, starting a 3 p.m. and the Championship game is set for 11 a.m. Sunday.  There will be live stats for all tournament games at prairieviewstats.com. The SWAC Digital Network will live stream Sunday's championship match.