DECATUR – The Northwest Mississippi Community College men's soccer team (4-7-2, 1-5) dropped a tough contest with East Central Community College (6-4, 4-2) on Tuesday night, staying close with the Warriors until falling behind late in the 4-1 loss.

The game opened with both teams taking some time to figure each other out and the Rangers were able to test the Warriors goalie several times but couldn't slip any past to open the scoring.

East Central took advantage of some chaos in the 18-yard box in the 39^th minute to strike first and take the advantage when two deflections off Northwest defenders set up a finish to put the Warriors up 1-0 going into halftime.

Northwest came out aggressively in the second half, and seemed to make some headway in their attack, getting more positive looks at the goal but ECCC took advantage of a counterattack opportunity to double their lead in the 60^th minute.

The Rangers broke through 13 minutes later with their first goal in the 73^rd minute on a long pass from Tendai Machingura that found Tyler Starnes in the open for a one-on-one with the Warrior goalie, and he finished to close the gap to 2-1.

That energized the Northwest attack again, and they pushed hard to try evening the match, but that backfired when another counterattack slipped past the back line of the Rangers to build the lead back to two at 3-1.

One more goal would come very late when a long shot towards the goal with seven seconds left made the final score 4-1.

Northwest finished the game with 10 total shots and six of them ended up on the goal. The match was a physical one with 13 fouls on the Rangers and it saw four yellow cards handed out. Three went to East Central and one was picked up by Ben Marchetta in the 55^th minute.

Jacob Little made five saves in goal for the Rangers in his 13^th start of the season for the Rangers.

Northwest returns home on Friday evening when they host Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (7-5, 3-3) at 6:00 pm at the Ranger Soccer Complex. The match will be streamed online at nwccrangers.com/watch.

More information on the Northwest men's soccer team can be found at nwccrangers.com or by following along on Ranger social media accounts.