SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College baseball team (8-3) finished off a sweep of Illinois Central College Cougars (0-6), earning a 4-1 win in the opener of the Saturday double header before closing it with a thrilling 6-5 walk-off win in nine innings.

"Any time you sweep it's big" said Head Coach Mark Carson, praising the work of his team in the second game in particular where it was a grind it out win to finish off the sweep.

GAME 1

The Rangers got off to a quick start in the opening game of the double header, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first thanks to a John Whit Snopek home run that brought home Hallas Lawson who had led the game off for Northwest with a walk.

Illinois Central cut back into the lead when three Ranger errors would allow the first run of the game to score for the Cougars to make it 4-1 but Northwest answered with runs in the bottom of the third and fourth innings from RBI singles by Barrett McKenney and Evan Lightsey.

Up 4-1, that would be more than enough for Tyce Powers to pick up his first win of the season, going five innings while striking out nine and giving up only one unearned run.

Powers would give way to Connor Young who would finish the final two innings of work for the NWCC pitching staff on the way to their seventh win of the year in their opening ten games.

GAME 2

It was déjà vu for the Northwest offense in their second game with Illinois Central, scoring quickly in the bottom of the first inning where four runs would score thinks to a pair of errors and three wild pitches from Caleb Bieneman in an inning where all nine Rangers would come to the plate.

After going up 4-0, it seemed like the Rangers were on the way to an easy sweep of the Cougars, but the offense would dry up for NWCC while the Illinois Central offense would reach its peak in the top of the fourth inning where they touched up Tyler Sullivan for three runs on four hits, including a pair of RBI doubles.

Northwest answered back one inning later in the bottom of the fifth with a sac fly from South McCoy that would bring home Hayes Hooker for a bit of insurance and a 5-3 lead.

It proved to be vital for the Rangers when a sac fly by the Cougars would close it back to 5-4 in the top of the sixth inning and a run-scoring error would bring home the tying run in the top of the seventh.

Both teams would have chances to score as the game went to extra innings, but it was Northwest who would pull it out with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when Hooker roped a ball just inside of the third base bag to bring home Josh Pena to win the game 6-5.

"I didn't make the moment too big," said Hooker, who is just a freshman for the Rangers. "I just tried to stay small and be simple and that's what I did and it just happened to fall in our hands."

The win goes to South McCoy who picked up 2.2 innings of relief work after coming into the top of the seventh to replace Sullivan. Sullivan would almost go the distance, getting pulled with one out in the seventh after going 6.1 innings, working around ten hits and five runs allowed.

It was a big weekend that showed just how unified the team has become after fall workouts and the early spring.

"We all stick together really well," Hooker said. "First game we got the win and handled it but the second game, I mean, it was rough. But we came out in the end and got the win because we stuck together the entire time."

The wins give Northwest an 8-3 record and three straight in their current stretch. It also moves them to 7-1 against NJCAA DII opponents, with the only loss coming to #2 Pearl River Community College.

Northwest has another busy week of games this weekend with a split double-header against Northeast Mississippi Community College and Itawamba Community College on Wednesday before traveling up to Millington, Tennessee for the Perfect Game Invitational at USA Stadium on Friday and Saturday.

"We still have a lot of work to do. We have conference ahead of us so we can't get too big with ourselves. Got a lot of work to do still," Hooker said.

Keep up with schedule updates and changes by following along on nwccrangers.com or on Northwest social media accounts.