Prairie View A&M Tops Sam Houston State, 75-65

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas -- Three Prairie View A&M players posted double-digit outputs to lead a 75-65 victory over Sam Houston State Saturday at the William J. Nicks Building.

Jeronia Allen led a trio of seniors with a season high of 23 points to lead all scorers, along with seven rebounds, six assists and two steals. Alexus Parker captured her second double-double of the season with 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Tori Carter added 15 points and a season high of eight assists to the Lady Panthers win.

"I thought my kids played hard tonight," said head coach Ravon Justice. "We had a run tonight, which is a sign of growth and we definitely fought them (Sam Houston) with the tough situations on the floor. Coming off a road loss, it's really good to come home and get the win."

The Lady Panthers (4-4) came out on fire, taking an early lead and went into the second quarter with a seven-point lead (20-13).

With two minutes knocked off the clock Prairie View A&M a jumper by Parker and a three-pointer by Talisha Presley pushed the score to a 12 25-13) the largest lead of the quarter. The Bearkats (0-8) tried to gain some momentum as they chipped the point spread to five (35-30) going into halftime.

After Sam Houston made a run to cut the PVAMU to one at 40-39 with 4:55 left to go, the Lady Panthers made a run of their own. Four back-to-back baskets by Allen and Carter and some forced turnovers by the Lady Panthers helped push the lead to 54-41 with under three minutes to play in third quarter.


PVAMU shot 43.8 percent from the field and out-rebounded Sam Houston 44-39, and forced 24 turnovers to PV's 12.

"We thought we were turning the ball over too much during the early part of the season," Justice said. "Now that we are progressing as a team and taking care of the basketball, it should be important to our basketball team. I thought my kids did a great job with that, thanks to our upperclassman."

As a team Prairie View A&M had a season high of 20 assists to go along with a season high of 11 steals and three blocks.

"Any time that you can have 20 assists, that says a lot for your basketball team," said Justice. "I am pleased with that. Sharing the basketball and making sure we get the ball in the right people's hand is extremely important to me."

Prairie View A&M returns to action at 15th-ranked DePaul on Monday at noon.

"Going into DePaul on Monday is definitely going to be a challenge for us, and we are up for the challenge," Justice said. "They are a ranked team, so looking ahead we have got to make free throws, and that's something we are going to talk about, just having energy and just trying to carry over the win we just had."

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