WEST MEMPHIS, AR – The Northwest Mississippi Community College women's basketball team (3-0) jumped all over Arkansas State University Mid-South (1-2) on Thursday night, storming out to a big lead and letting their defense do the talking on the way to a 62-48 win to remain perfect at the start of the year.

"We talked about starting fast and finishing strong each game," Head Coach LaTaryl Williams said. "We really had a quick start and wanted to set the tone defensively and get the ball inside through our posts and our drives and that's what we did."

The opening quarter saw a big push inside from Northwest thanks to a defense that forced plenty of turnovers and was able to feed everyone on the way to a 17-0 run to kick off the game. The Greyhounds didn't get their first basket until 2:22 left in the opening quarter and the Rangers full court press forced them into over ten turnovers by the end of the quarter, extending the lead to 22-2 as the horn sounded.

Mid-South tried to respond early in the second quarter, cutting the deficit to 15 by the time the midway point of the frame arrived, but most of it was coming from the free throw line. Northwest found their stroke again in the waning minutes, closing the quarter on a 10-0 run to push the lead to 38-14, keyed by a few transition baskets by Dekyra Mitchel, who had 13 points by the end of the half on a blistering 5-7 performance from the field.

"We are athletics with our two guards in front," Williams said. "I feel like we are really strong in the sense that we can apply pressure and make things difficult for teams going full court. Regardless of the people we put in the game at the front of our press, they will execute that pressure each game."

Alorian Story added that they have a team that really wants to get out and run, from the guards in front to the posts.

"This year the team is in way better shape to run and transition," she said. "We like to get out and run."

Coming out of the locker rooms, the Rangers immediately went back to work on the offensive side, extending their lead to a game high 44-14, leaning on Story to start the action and rotating in the full rotation off the bench to keep legs fresh.

"I feel like the more people you can put out there and get quality minutes from, it makes us a lot more difficult to deal with once you get to conference play," Williams said. "If we can get a nice rotation of eight, nine, maybe ten players, it means we can have fresh bodies at all times."

The Greyhounds were able to stop the bleeding, but their only real offense came from trips to the foul line where they still couldn't cut too much into the lead, trialing going into the fourth quarter still by 25 points.

The Rangers used their size inside to wall up and not give up any easy buckets or many second chance opportunities on the way to reestablishing the big lead.

"We have the height and size compared to every other team in the paint," Story said. "We have to use that to our advantage, because all of us our tall and have a long wingspan."

"We talked about winning the boards on both ends of the floor and I think they did a really good job tonight and taking advantage of our size and athletic ability against Mid-South," echoed Williams.

The offense for Northwest did stall out a bit in the fourth quarter, going silent for the first three minutes, but it didn't hurt the team at all, as their defense also held the Greyhounds off of the board and with 7:10 left in the game, the Rangers were still in command 55-29. The lead pushed up to 59-31 midway through the quarter allowing the Northwest bench to carry most of the load for the remainder of the game.

Mid-South took the opportunity to close the gap on the way in, finishing the game on a 17-3 run against the reserves for Northwest, but the game was sealed well before that and the Rangers closed out the 62-48 win on the one game road trip to remain unblemished on the year.

Mitchell was the hot hand for Northwest in the game, finishing 8-11 from the field and leading with a season best 18 points to go with three steals. Story added a second double-double to start the year, picking up a season high 17 rebounds to go with 16 points.

"It feels good to do it again," the sophomore from Ripley said. "I was able to get double-doubles last year too, but it feels good to show it again with how I worked in the off-season and to lose the weight I lost, if feels better to be able to do the same thing."

Nine Rangers in total scored in the game, but the team defense was really the key to the win where Northwest picked up 19 steals, including a game high six from Zoe Metcalf. The forced turnovers keyed the transition defense and Laylah Hampton used that to pile up six assists in the game to help lead the way to eleven on the night for Northwest. They also were rigid inside, blocking six shots through the night.

Northwest will have the weekend to prepare for their next home game when they play host to on of their toughest tests of the season in #6 Three Rivers College on Monday night at Howard Coliseum. The Raiders were an elite eight team at last year's NJCAA Division I Women's Basketball National Tournament and have scored over 100 points in each of their first two games to open the season.

"The main thing is we have to understand that they have a program that has been successful on a national level, and we feel like that's where we want to be," Williams said of the matchup. "This is a good measuring stick for us to see where we are against a team like Three Rivers."

Tipoff for the game in Senatobia is set for 5:30 pm and the contest will be streamed online at nwccrangers.com/watch. You can find more information on the Rangers by following along all season on social media.