SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College women's basketball team (3-1) couldn't hold off the #4 Three Rivers College Raiders (5-0) on Monday night at Howard Coliseum, falling 63-55 in their first loss of the year.

Northwest put in a great first half that had the upset on their mind, but were outscored 46-22 in the second half and Head Coach LaTaryl Williams said the message to his team afterwards was all about finishing.

"We talked about taking our program to the next level and when you get to take on teams like this who are nationally ranked all year long, we have to step up. I thought we did that well for 20 minutes, we just have to understand there are two halves to a game, and you still need to show up in the second half."

The game started off quickly for the Rangers who held Three Rivers scoreless for the opening five minutes while getting out to a 7-0 lead themselves and didn't allow the Raiders to make a field goal in the opening 10 minutes on the way to a 17-5 lead after the first quarter.

Dekyra Mitchell was key in the first half, making several threes against a zone defense that Williams said was expected.

"We talked with [Dekyra] about the opportunities she was going to have in the first half. They like to play a lot of zone, so we knew she was going to have open looks from the perimeter, and she got going early so they really keyed on her in the second half."

Northwest grew the lead to as much as 20 in the first half as they pushed it to 31-11 with just under 3:30 left to go until halftime and kept that lead at double digits going into the locker room up 33-17 with, only giving up a few made field goals inside and free throws to the visitors.

"I thought that the ladies came out and followed the scouting report to tee," Williams said. "We were really concerned about their three-point shooting and we were concerned about keeping them off of the free throw line and we did a really good job of controlling that in the first half."

Three Rivers woke up in the second half, and their defense rose up in particular, limiting the Rangers to just two points in the opening five minutes while using their outside shooting game, which began to head up on the first few possessions, to cut the lead to 35-30 with 4:49 left in the third.

The Rangers rebuilt the lead back to seven thanks to some inside out play that opened up Dekyra Mitchell for three and the defense tightened up for the remainder of the half as they put a tourniquet on the bleeding to go into the fourth quarter up 48-43, and even had the first basket of the final frame to push the lead to seven again at 50-43.

This time it was the Raiders who clamped down again, going on an 20-0 run to take their first lead of the game with 7:09 to go at 51-50 and pushed the lead to double figures with less than three minutes left and not allowing the Rangers to score again until the final minute.

Northwest was able to make a few baskets at the end to regain some confidence but couldn't rally back in the short time left as they fell 63-55 for the first loss of the season.

Mitchell continued her strong start to the year with a team high 23 points, going 7-20 from the field and 5-5 from the foul line. She would add four steals to her line score too.

Takera Bland had her best night of the season with 15 points and Alorian Story came one point from her third triple double of the season with nine points and 12 rebounds in 34 minutes. Layla Hampton had a strong night passing the ball with five of the teams 11 assists.

The Rangers allowed the Raiders to shoot over 50 percent in the second half including going 6-12 from deep but they did win the turnover battle by forcing Three Rivers into 21 turnovers while only turning it over 16 times themselves.

Northwest will return to action this weekend on the road when they travel to Paris, Texas for the Paris Junior College Classic there they will face off with Trinity Valley Community College on Friday night before closing out the weekend with a game against Blinn College on Saturday afternoon.

More information on the NWCC women's basketball team can be found at nwccrangers.com or by following along with Ranger social media accounts.