PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – The Prairie View A&M Lady Panthers will aim for their first Southwestern Athletic Conference win of the season Thursday when they host local rival Texas Southern. Match time is scheduled for 7 p.m.
The Panthers (6-14, 0-2 SWAC) should be well-rested when they take the court Thursday, having played their last match eight days ago, when they swept NAIA program Huston-Tillotson in Austin. It will also be the team's first home game since October 1, also a sweep of Huston-Tillotson.
Texas Southern (8-13) sits atop the SWAC's West Division standings with a record of 4-0 in league play. The Lady Panthers dropped a three-set decision to the Tigers in Houston on Sept. 30.
The Panthers have shown they can keep up with the front-running Tigers, as the teams also met in August at the Texas Southern Invitational. An exhausted Lady Panthers still gave Texas Southern four hard-fought sets in losing the match; Prairie View A&M had less than an hour to physically recover for that match, as it was the second of back-to-back contests after the Panthers defeated New Orleans in five sets.
Prairie View A&M still boasts the league's top setter as well as the SWAC leader in kills. Junior setter
Ana Kiso (Belgrade, Serbia / Panola College) leads the SWAC with 599 assists and 8.56 assists per set.
Candyce Alexander (Bedford, Texas / Missouri State–West Plains) leads the conference with 2.91 kills per set.
A win over the Tigers would give Prairie View A&M its first victory over an NCAA Division I program in almost a month, when the Lady Panthers defeated Alabama State in five sets. At first glance, that may seem like a long drought, but Thursday's match will be only the fourth for the Panthers in the month of October. A five-set loss at Southern was sandwiched between the two wins over Huston-Tillotson.
As October is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Lady Panthers have also designated Thursday's contest as their Dig Pink match. "Dig Pink" is an initiative by the Side-Out Foundation to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer.
