SENATOBIA – Special teams and defense were the difference on Saturday afternoon in the MACCC championship as the #4 Northwest Mississippi Community College football team clinched their second consecutive MACCC Championship with a 16-13 win over #5 Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College at Bobby Franklin Field.
"It feels great. I'm proud of our coaches and our players," Head Coach Benjy Parker said after winning his fourth MACCC championship, all of which have come in the past six seasons. "Our administration lets us do our job and supports us, and it's a great night."
It was a team effort and the Ranger's running game was also a key in sealing the deal, led by a set of sophomores in Ja Keyes and Jarvis Durr who had to take the reins in the second half to carry the load together.
"It's a blessing. I've been to a championship game three times in high school and now I finally get to win one. It's a great feeling," said Durr, who joined the Rangers as a sophomore transfer this season.
Early on, it was the Rangers passing game that got things going. After the opening drive for the Bulldogs fizzled out a their own 31-yard line, Northwest took over at their own 33 and proceeded to use their short passing game to move into the edge of field goal range nine plays later. Hayden Wolfe would be called on to attempt a 51-yarder, and the sophomore placed his line drive attempt straight through the uprights to give the Rangers the opening lead with 10:07 left in the first quarter.
"Being able to step up and do my part for the team and help to win the game it just means a lot," Wolfe said. "Those points were very important. It's the first drive of the game and you have to establish momentum going forward. It just gave us a little edge as we finished up three."
Gulf Coast took their second drive and answered with an 11-play drive that took them all the way to the three-yard line, but the Ranger defense stood tall at the goal line in what would be a theme on the day in short yardage situations, stopping them on both third and fourth down with only a yard to go.
"We really believe we are the best defense in the nation," Charles Woodard, who was a crucial part of the defensive front all game long, said. "I think we have a lot of hard workers on this team, and we are going to get after it and handle adversity. Our coach said we need to be like Freddy Krueger, and we played our game when it counted."
The Rangers ensuing drive would only get to the 19-yard line after only one first down, and the punt would be blocked by the Gulf Coast pressure to set them up at the seven. It took just one play for them to capitalize on a pass from Landon Barnes to Owen Colpaert to give them a 7-0 lead with 2:46 left in the first quarter.
Northwest made sure the lead wouldn't stay with Gulf Coast long. A 12-play drive had the Rangers marching into the second quarter and into Bulldogs side of the field, covering nearly five minutes of clock time and it was capped by Quincy Phillips Jr's first touchdown of the season, reeling in a pass from Neko Fann to give a 10-7 lead back to the Rangers with 12:55 to go in the half.
Defense for both sides had brilliant moments for the remainder of the first starting with the Rangers who saw Marion Keyes pull in his first interception of the season to end a drive from the Bulldogs at the 10-yard line after it was tipped by Tyler Henderson and left up for grabs.
The Rangers went back to the ground game on their next drive, and it seemed like they were destined to find the endzone themselves, but a first down pass from Fann at the 25-yard line was picked off by Elijah Owens on the goal like to give it back to the visitors.
That took the steam out of both sides and the game went to the half with Northwest holding the lead and set to receive the opening kick of the second half.
After the Bulldogs kicked the ball out of bounds to open the final 30 minutes, Northwest put the keys in the ignition and went for the longest drive of the game, marching 54 yards on 14 plays, taking up nearly eight minutes of game time to get to the Gulf Coast 11-yard line. They were forced to settle for a 28-yard field goal from Wolfe that pushed the lead to 13-7 with 7:11 to go in the third.
Gulf Coast put themselves in scoring position again, after starting at their own ten-yard line, and after a 35-yard completion to Royale Shelvy, they were knocking on the door of the redzone. That was when Elliot Helps took in his second interception of the postseason on a pass intended for Henderson to give Northwest the ball at their own two.
"Big time players make big time plays in big time moments, and we have a lot of those guys," Woodard said.
"That was huge," Parker said. "What a great player and a great person and I'm glad he is on our team."
The next Northwest drive didn't result in anything but a three-and-out and the Rangers were forced to punt, only getting the ball to midfield, and in a drive that extended into the fourth quarter, Gulf Coast was able to go 10 plays on the way to their second touchdown of the game, this time on a double reverse that saw Henderson cross the goal line with 14:18 to go in the game.
After a personal foul pushed the point after to the 18-yard line, the Rangers were able to block the kick and keep the game tied at 13.
Both teams traded punts on their next drives and with just under six minutes left, Northwest was able to get to the Gulf Coast 30-yard where they trotted out Wolfe for his third attempt of the game and the sophomore came through again with a 47-yard make to give the Rangers the lead for the third time in the game at 16-13.
Wolfe, who had entered the game at 2-5 on kicks longer than 40 yards, went 2-2 from that range on the way to a 3-3 game and a PAT.
"It means so much for me, being able to be, being able to contribute to this team and take us to the next game going forward, it means a lot. As a sophomore it means so much more and I am so glad to help and I give God all the glory, I couldn't have done it without him," Wolfe said.
Gulf Coast had a chance on the heels of their next drive to tie the game when they got the ball to the Ranger 21 yard line but Northwest held them on third and three to force a 38-yard attempt that was missed wide to the left by Aiden Guinn to keep the Rangers lead intact with just 2:27 to go.
Northwest needed just one first down to ice the game away, and facing a third and eight of their own, the Rangers decided to gamble and go to the air with a screen pass to Durr and the redshirt-sophomore picked up just enough to move the chains after a discussion by the officials, and the Rangers were able to kneel out the rest of the game to secure their fourth MACCC championship in the past six years, and their second consecutive title with a 16-13 victory.
"We had a little screen play called and all I did was stay calm, grab the ball and run out of bounds and got the first down," Durr said. "I didn't want to turn the ball over since we were down towards the red zone and they would have had a chance to kick a field goal, so we made sure we kept the ball."
It was a balance attack for Northwest, totaling 313 yards of offense behind 191 through the air by Neko Fann who finished 18-30 with one touchdown and one interception.
Keon Hutchins led the team in passing with 50 yards on five receptions with Durr just behind, pulling in four passes for 45 yards. Durr added another 65 yards on the ground for 110 total yards in the game. Britten Traylor came back from a game against Co-Lin that saw him get zero receptions with three for 44 yards and M.J. Johnson had three as well for 26 yards.
Ja Keyes was the second leading rusher in the game for Northwest with 10 carries for 37 yards and Julius Pope closed out the top running backs with seven carries for 26 yards, although he missed most of the second half with an injury.
The running game turned out to be a huge key for Northwest in the game and in controlling the ball in the second half, and Ja Keyes said they found a few plays that were working, and it really was a next man up when Pope had to come out.
"Our outside zone was working for us and the cutbacks were there. We were able to hit them with that and have some good plays," Keyes said. "Obviously we would have loved to have had (Pope) but he's carried us to this point and tonight we had to handle business for him and the team."
"Durr and Keyes did a great job stepping in when Juju got banged up and the offensive line was blocking well," Parker said.
Defensively, it was Rase Jones who led Northwest in tackles, tallying five solos on his way to seven total takedowns. T.J. Span and Chris Thomas both had six tackles including one for.a loss from Thomas. Six other Rangers had four tackles each. Keyes and Helps interceptions were the only turnovers in the game for Northwest.
Parker said it was particularly special to see the defense shut down one of the top passing games in the nation.
"That offense was the number one passing offense in the country and they are really dynamic and good on that side of the ball. Our defense really stepped up and it was a great job by our coaching staff to plan their plan and the players executed it."
The Rangers essentially clinched a spot in the national playoff field as they were ranked fourth in the country entering the game, and the top four teams nationally qualify for the playoffs. Currently Hutchinson Community College holds the top spot with one more game remaining in their regular season schedule. Iowa Western Community College sits in second and Tyler Junior College, who advanced to the SWJCFC championship game with a 35-28 win over Cisco College on Saturday, sit in third.
Parker said that all of the decision making is out of their control now, and for now, it was about celebrating the achievement of another goal on the list for the Rangers.
"I will worry about all of that tomorrow. We just won the championship, and we will figure the rest of it out later."
Parkers players do know one thing for sure. They have more football to be played.
"Jobs not finished," Woodard said. "We are going to have a game in a couple of weeks, and we are pursuing a national championship. Our goal for this year was not a state championship, but a national championship. I think everyone is really fired up for that after we came close last year and I think we have a lot of guys who are really hungry to go get that."
The National semifinal games are scheduled for the weekend of December 6th with the top two seeds hosting the opening rounds. The championship would be held in Frisco, Texas on December 16th.
Keep up with Ranger football news at nwccrangers.com or by following along on Northwest social media accounts.
