SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College men's soccer team (5-10-2, 2-8) capped off their home season with an impressive 3-1 win over Southwest Mississippi Community College (6-8-1, 3-6-1) on Friday night, never trailing and picking up clutch goals from their second year players to send them off on sophomore night with a win and give the program its highest win total since 2016.
"I'm extremely excited about the future of the program," Head Coach Michael Sullivan said after the win which was one of the more complete efforts the team had put forth all season long. "It's going to take the young men that want to be a part of pushing it past where it is at and I think it is well on its way. We just need to keep getting the right guy's here with the right mentality but it's extremely exciting and I'm hoping there are more people who want to be a part of it."
The Rangers controlled the ball and the opportunities for the entire first half, not allowing a single shot on goal through the opening 45 minutes while battering the Bears with 12 shots on goal themselves.
Northwest broke through with a cross in the 24th minute from Michael Sanders to Ben Marchetta, who had just subbed onto the field minutes earlier, beating the keeper across the net to give the Rangers their first lead in a conference game since their win over East Mississippi Community College to open conference play.
After taking that lead into the halftime locker room, Northwest saw a momentum changing play made by Southwest when Ilan Marin was able to finish a penalty kick in the 47th minute to make it a brand-new game at 1-1.
Northwest didn't falter though, and in fact, doubled down as they once again built up the pressure and went back to controlling the pace of the game and the possession of the ball. In the 68th minute, that all paid off when Tyler Starnes took a cross from Cody Jones to answer the early goal in the half from the Bears and return the lead to the home side, making it 2-1.
"I think they were just ready. The mentality was right, and they knew what they needed to do and were bought into it. I think it was just the fight they had in them," Sullivan said.
It was tense for the next 16 minutes of play as the physicality of the game mounted, as was shown by the 18 fouls which were called in the game and the six cards handed out, including four in the second half to Northwest.
That tension eased in the 84th minute when Audon Sammons was found by Wesley Kilpatrick after he got the goalie out of position and his cross finished the match with a goal to make it 3-1 on the first goal of the career for Sammons.
It still wasn't easy down the stretch and the final six minutes. Northwest had a red card send off Ariel Vallejo and had to play the final four minutes down a man, but they survived to pick up their fifth win of the year and break a streak of eight straight losses in MACCC action.
"It feels incredible," Sullivan said. "They've had their downs and now they have an up and I'm glad they took advantage of it. They just pushed and got a result for themselves."
The win total is the most since the 2016 team went 6-7-1. It also ended the chances for SMCC to make the postseason, mathematically eliminating them from the playoffs with the loss and putting Copiah-Lincoln Community College into the final seven.
Northwest will take on CoLin on Tuesday when they travel to Wesson for the final game of their season. Kickoff of that game is scheduled for 7:00 pm with streaming information available at nwccrangers.com.
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