SENATOBIA – Stellar defense and a barrage of offense from the #3 Northwest Mississippi Community College women's soccer team (15-1-1, 9-1-1) took down the Itawamba Community College Indians (6-7-4, 3-5-3) in a 3-0 match to open the Region 23 Tournament on Friday night at the Ranger Soccer Complex.
The Rangers started off with an early assault on the net but had trouble getting shots on frame with only one of their first five being on target.
In the 13th minute, right on the heels of a substitution that brought on Olivia Miller and Molly Thompson, the Rangers saw that duo team up for the opening strike with a deflection from Thompson opening Miller for a quick strike and a 1-0 Northwest lead. It was the first assist of the season for Thompson and got the Rangers going early.
"Coach always tells us to get the first goal fast, and we will just keep flying from there," Miller said, picking up her second goal of the year on the strike. "It helps boost the momentum a lot especially when we are coming from a substitution."
"Early goals change games," Head Coach James Beattie said. "When you play a team twice, especially when you won easily the last time, you know that they have nothing to lose going into this, so for me, getting the early goal, we had to make sure that was a priority from the start."
An intense attack from Northwest continued through the rest of the half with 25 shots and five corner kicks from the Rangers but they continued to have trouble breaking into the scoring column, much in large part to Annabelle Holman, who was in net for the Indians and made 17 saves through the evening against the barrage.
Her stingy keeping and a packed box full of ICC players kept the Rangers from getting close to the goal, so they went to the alternative, and that was Emma Jensen striking from outside.
In the 35th minute, the sophomore was left the ball from McKenzi Rankins and from 20 yards out blistered a goal past the outstretched save attempt from Holman to double the Ranger lead going into the half at 2-0.
Itawamba came out swinging in the second half with their season on the line and for the opening five minutes controlled the pace and put a few scares into the Northwest defense including a line shot that Ann Marie Barton saved from Noa Ferandin, but that was short lived.
In the blink of an eye, Northwest took command right back and their gritty defense wouldn't allow another shot for the rest of the match from the Indians.
"It's win or go home, so when they came out in the second half, we knew it was going to be high intensity," Beattie said. "For us we had to match it, get a goal and kill the game and that's what we did."
The assault on goal continued for the Rangers on offense, putting up another 19 shots on goal, including a 50th minute strike from Jensen where she created her own space and the reigning Region 23 Player of the Year picked up her 26th goal of the season to make it 3-0.
From there, the match played out with Northwest controlling the game and running their way to an opening round win.
Northwest only allowed seven total shots in the game and all three on goal were saved by Barton. Miller said that defensive strength the team shows really allows the attackers to play more stress free.
"I would trust our defense with my life," the freshman from Saltillo said. "It's nice having people that work hard back there and are always going to show up and do their job."
The victory punches a ticket to the Region 23 Semifinals in Ridgeland on Wednesday evening where Northwest will face off against #5 Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (12-2-1, 9-1-1) at 4:30 pm. The matches will be played at the Freedom Ridge Soccer Complex where #2 Holmes Community College will face off against #7 Jones College in the other semifinal.
The message to the team is simple for Beattie. With every team being a top 10 team in the country, they have to bring a top effort every game no matter who is on the other side.
"It's just taking it game by game. Regardless of who the opponent is we just need to attack it and focus on ourselves."
More information on the tournament and the Northwest schedule can be found at nwccrangers.com or by keeping up on Ranger social media accounts.
