SENATOBIA – Northwest and Pearl River will play a decisive Game 3 in an opening round best-of-3 softball playoff series on Monday at 1 p.m. after the two teams split a pair of games on Sunday afternoon. PRCC won the opener 2-0 and Northwest responded with a 3-1 win.

Northwest moved to 27-9 overall while Pearl River moved to 23-22.

Pearl River's Rachel Hickman and Northwest's Kiley Dunagan battled it out in the circle in an awesome pitcher's duel in game one, with the two combining for 17 strikeouts against three walks and throwing a combined 238 pitches (168 strikes).

Hickman had just enough offense behind her, however, to get the complete-game victory, scattering three hits and getting two runs in the top of the sixth. Brooke Roberts and Katie Davis were credited with the RBIs.

Dunagan struck out 11 and allowed eight hits but Northwest just couldn't move runners up when they needed to.

The Rangers failed to score a runner from second in three straight innings and had second and third with one out in the fourth but were unable to score each time.

Scoreless after three innings in game two, Northwest scored two in the fourth and one in the fifth to take a 3-0 lead. Heath Griffith's RBI-single plated the Rangers' first run of the day and she would come around to score off an error. Brittany Rochelle's RBI-single off a hard hit ball to first scored Christina Berryhill to make it 3-0.

PRCC got a run back in the sixth on Danielle Barton's RBI-double to right, making it 3-1 after six.

Holliday worked into the sixth inning and let Dunagan close things out for her team-high third save of the year. Back-to-back singles put the go-ahead run at the plate before Dunagan induced consecutive flyouts.

Holliday (10-2) scattered seven hits, one run and four strikeouts for the win.

Both teams finished with eight hits in the game, led by two apiece from Griffith and Rochelle.

First pitch of Game 3 is set for 1 p.m. Monday. The winner advances to the state tournament, hosted by Jones County.