Box Score SENATOBIA - It was a tough night for the Northwest Mississippi Community College volleyball team (16-3, 7-1) dropped their home contest on Wednesday night to Pearl River Community College (12-6, 7-1), dropping their first MACCC match of the year and seeing their 13-match winning streak coming to a close.
Northwest rallied to an early lead in the opening set but six ties and three lead changes allowed the Wildcats to stick around. The Rangers seemed to get the break they needed on a 4-0 run to go up 19-16, but Pearl River tied the game on a run of their own to tie the game at 22-22, and closed the match on a 3-1 run to snatch momentum with a 25-23 win.
Set two was was very similar in the vibe early on. Northwest established themselves early with a 4-3 lead and again with a 9-7 advantage. The Rangers fell behind again 14-11 but climbed back in front from there with an 8-2 run in response to take what seemed to be control in the match. The see-saw tilted back to the Wildcats when they ran of a 9-1 roll of their own after trailing 19-16 to take the set 25-20 and go up 2-0 on Northwest and put the Rangers in a back-to-the-wall situation for the first time this season.
It took some time for NWCC to regain their footing in the third set. The Wildcats took the lead at 4-3 and built it up to as much as 15-9 midway through, but a timeout from Northwest steadied the legs and an 11-5 run followed to tie the match at 20-20. The final points of the match kept everyone on their toes. Pearl River came out of a timeout and immediately rolled off four straight to bring match point at 24-20, but another Ranger timeout stemmed the tide and reversed the flow of points. A 3-0 run forced a timeout by Pearl River at 24-23. It worked in the Wildcats favor when Northwest served the ball out on the very next point, giving the set to the Wildcats 25-23 and the match to the visitors 3-0.
Northwest didn't see any attackers finish with double digit kills, paced by
Ariana Woods and
Adalyn Callahan with seven each and
Aven Mathis with six. The offense was spread out as usual with nine different Rangers recording a kill in the match.
Dallas White was the leading passer in the match with eleven assists for NWCC and
Chloe Rodriguez had ten. Rodriguez also led the Rangers with four block assists, contributing on every block in the match for the Rangers.
The Rangers don't have much time to think about the match as they are on the road on Thursday night when they travel to Jackson, Tennessee for a battle with Jackson State Community College. The match with the Green Jays can be streamed on
YouTube with the opening serve scheduled for 6:00 pm. More information on the match can be found at nwccrangers.com.
