SENATOBIA – Pearl River edged Northwest 1-0 on Monday afternoon in Game 3 of a Best-of-3 series to win the series 2-1 and advance to this weekend's state tournament in Ellisville.

Northwest's season came to a close at 27-10 but not before the Rangers won their first division title since 2009.

Scoreless after five innings in the win-or-go-home game, Pearl River got the eventual game-winning run on Hannah Holloway's sacrifice fly to left in the top of the sixth, scoring Mary Grace Key after a leadoff single.

Just like they did in the opening game of the series, a 2-0 loss, Northwest had numerous chances to advance runners in scoring position but just could not come up with the big hit to score. Northwest stranded two runners on base in the fifth and seventh, six total in the game.

Rachel Hickman (11-10) struck out 11 Ranger batters and allowed just three hits in a complete-game performance. For the three-game set, Hickman allowed nine hits, one run and struck out 18 in 17 innings pitched. 

Kiley Dunagan (9-4) matched Hickman inning for inning but couldn't get the run support to back her up. The hard-luck loser, Dunagan scattered four hits, one run and five strikeouts in her final game at Northwest.

Erin Claire Stegall, Kendall Alford and Carla Avant were responsible for the three Ranger hits. PRCC finished with four.