CHARLOTTE, N.C. - As the Northwest Mississippi Community College football team prepares for the MACCC and Region 23 Championship on Saturday afternoon, they saw their hard work to climb back up into a position to make the national tournament pay off as they moved to fourth in the most recent polls from the NJCAA for Division I Football. 

The Rangers are the highest-ranked team with more than one loss in the poll and are only trailing #1 Hutchinson Community College (9-0), #2 Iowa Western Community College (8-1), and #3 Trinity Valley Community College (8-1). The top five is rounded out by 7-2 Butler Community College. 

Northwest is looking for a victory this weekend over #9 Hinds Community College (7-3), which took a tumble in the rankings from seventh after they fell to unranked Jones College on Thursday evening. That actually dropped them behind Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (8-2), who moved up to seventh, and East Mississippi Community College (8-2) who dropped to eighth after falling to the Rangers last Thursday in Scooba. Copiah-Lincoln Community College (7-3) and East Central Community College (6-4) close out the ranked teams from Mississippi at #13 and #15, respectively.

The Rangers are getting set to host the Region 23 Championship Game on Saturday afternoon at Ranger Stadium and Bobby Franklin Field, with kickoff scheduled for 2 p.m. You can watch the game starting with the pregame show at 1:30 p.m. with Tyler Springs and Russell Copeland on the call on Ranger TV. 

For more information on the Northwest football team, visit nwccrangers.com, or you can follow along on Ranger social media accounts.