HOUSTON – The Prairie View A&M men's tennis team dropped its spring season opener match to Rice, 6-1, Sunday at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
 
In the final match of the day, PVAMU's Kevin Ugarteche claimed the lone point for the Panthers at the No. 6 position over Rice's Jared Aiman. Ugarteche won the first set 6-4, Aiman forced a third set after falling 6-7.  Ugarteche claimed the final set 10-6 and won the point for the Panthers to close out play.
 
Rice won the doubles points to begin play and took a 1-0 lead in the match.  To start things off, Rodrigo Yoshikata and Ugarteche completed their match first at the No. 2 position falling 6-1 to the Owls' Jacob Eskeland and Conrad Russell.  PV's duo of Xavier Lawrence and Ulrick Boyogueno fell to Rice's Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar at the No. 1 position.
 
Mohamed Abdel-Aziz of Rice defeated Anirudh Yadav 6-0, 6-1 to begin singles action and make the score 2-0 in favor of the Owls at the No. 3 position.
 
Russell scored the third point for Rice with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Yoshikata in No. 5 singles. Boyogueno was defeated by Rutledge at the No. 1 position 6-0, 6-2 with the Owls advancing their score to 4-0.  Rice's Jacob Eskeland in the No. 4 position defeated Taqel Lewis 6-2, 6-3.
 
In a tight battle Sarkar defeated PV's Lawrence 6-3, 6-3 making the score 6-0. 
 
The Panthers will return to action when they host the University of Texas San Antonio on Wednesday, Jan. 17 for doubleheader action.  The first set will begin at 10 a.m. and then the two teams will play a 2 p.m. afternoon match at the PVAMU Tennis Courts.