BOONEVILLE – Northwest and No. 19 Northeast split a softball doubleheader Tuesday at David Carnell Field, with
Sarah Johnson's three-run home run lifting the Rangers to a 5-2 win in the opener before the Lady Tigers rallied late for a 9-5 victory in the nightcap.
Northwest moved to 16-14 overall and 8-10 in conference play, while Northeast moved to 23-16 and 11-7 in the MACJC.
The Rangers will play eight of their final 10 games in Senatobia, most likely needing to finish at the .500 mark in conference (14-14) to earn the eighth and final playoff spot.
Game 1 –
Northwest 5, Northeast 2
Scoreless into the fourth inning, Johnson's second career home run put the visitors on top 3-0 and that was enough run support for
Harley Smith who went the distance.
Johnson's three-run homer came with two outs in the fourth after
Alexis McShan walked and
Sarah Taylor singled to put two runners on.
Caleigh Wallace got Northeast on the board with her team-leading 14th home run of the year in the bottom of the fourth to make it 3-1.
The Rangers immediately responded with two runs in the fifth to push back ahead 5-1, using back-to-back singles by Smith and McShan and getting RBI hits from Johnson and
Shelby Wilson two batters later.
Northeast threatened in the sixth and seventh, but Smith was able to work out of jams both times. The Tigers scored on a Wallace single in the bottom of the seventh to pull within 5-2 before Smith stranded the bases loaded with a groundout to end the game.
Seven different Rangers had a hit, led by
Maddy Politte, Johnson (2-for-4, HR, 4 RBIs) and Wilson with two apiece.
Smith (9-8) won her fifth straight start in the circle, scattering two runs on 10 hits with five strikeouts against one walk.
Game 2 –
Northeast 9, Northwest 5
Northwest jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the third before a three-run shot for Caleigh Wallace flipped the script for Northeast and allowed the hosts to score nine of the game's final 10 runs.
The Rangers went ahead 3-0 in the second on a pair of Tiger errors and two hits and extended the lead to 4-0 in the third on another error.
All the momentum changed on one swing of the bat from Wallace, however, with her three-run shot pulling Northeast within 4-3 after three.
Northwest got the run back in the fifth on Wilson's RBI-single before a four-run bottom of the fifth gave the Tigers their first lead of the day at 7-5.
Besides McShan's single in the seventh, Northwest was set down in order the final two frames.
Johnson (0-2) relieved Brownlee to start the fifth and was hit with the loss after allowing six runs on five hits.
Morgan Gresham and Wilson had two hits apiece to lead seven different Rangers with at least one hit.
