PRAIRIE VIEW – Despite a career day by senior pitcher Kyle Smith, the Prairie View A&M baseball team (2-8, 0-1) dropped a 3-2 decision to Southern (3-7, 1-0 SWAC) Friday afternoon during Southwestern Athletic Conference play at Tankersley Field.

"This was probably the best game we've played all year as far as our effort," PVAMU Head Baseball Coach Auntwan Riggins said. "They were one play better than us. It's a tough loss, but I'm proud of how we competed today. It gives us a confidence boost, and I'm expecting us to carry that into tomorrow. We have to have timely hitting to win games. Southern had that, and we didn't. That was the difference in the game."

A scoreless affair early on, Prairie View A&M struck first in the fourth inning. After singles by Calvin Rucker and Andrew Garcia, Brayden Johnson slapped a single through the left side to bring Rucker home for the first score of the game.

Southern responded with a pair in the top of the fifth, but after an error prolonged the bottom half of the frame, David Garcia delivered a RBI base hit to center field to bring home Alex Martinez.

Smith managed to keep the Jaguars under wraps from that point until the fifth inning, as he exited the contest following consecutive singles by Southern. Cameron Cooper came on in relief and largely shut down the Jaguars lineup, but not without the visitors managing to push one across home plate. The Panthers were unable to find offense in its final at-bat, ending the game.

Smith struck out a career-high 11 batters in 8.1 innings of work, scattering seven hits while allowing three runs. It was also the cleanest game of the young season for the Panthers defense, which committed no errors.

"I challenged my infielders," Riggins said. "Southern's a team that hits ground balls the majority of the time, and Kyle's the kind of pitcher that normally gets teams to hit ground balls. I told our guys that we would have to play defense today and that if we did, we'd have a chance at the end. Southern just pulled out one more play than us."

Rucker and A. Garcia had a pair of hits, with the latter extending his hitting streak to six games. D. Garcia pushed his streak of consecutive games of reaching base to seven games.

Next Up:
PVAMU returns to action tomorrow afternoon versus Southern, with first pitch at 2 p.m. from Tankersley Field. The game can be followed via Live Stats.