SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College baseball team (9-4) split their two games on Wednesday afternoon and evening against Itawamba Community College () and Northeast Mississippi Community College (), showing off their resolve in the opener before falling in extra innings to the Tigers in the nightcap.

"It was a roller coaster but that's junior college baseball sometimes," Head Coach Mark Carson said. "Sometimes it comes in bushels as they say."

 GAME 1 – NWCC 14 ICC 12

The Northwest defense found themselves in an early hole to the Indians after they took advantage of three errors by the Rangers, capping the top of the first inning off with a three-run homerun that would give them a 9-0 lead right out of the gate.

Mason McMillan said that the confidence of the team never really waivered in the dugout, despite the large deficit.

"I don't' think we ever got down," he said. "We are very confident up at the plate, and we are confident in our pitchers too, we just got off to a slow start. I think everyone's morale was still up."

"We just got off to such a bad start and when you do that against a good team, you are supposed to get beat," Carson said. "At that point you just start thinking forget the game and lets just try to get two runs at a time, and our bullpen did such a good job of throwing up zeros and every inning we got a run and before you know it you start watching and realized you are within striking distance."

Northwest went to work and didn't back away from the early challenge, getting on the board with their first runs in the bottom of the second thanks to a bases loaded walk to John Whit Snopek and a sacrifice fly from Corey Watkins.

Itawamba answered back with two runs in the top of the third after loading the bases, but a 6-4-3 double play would get the Rangers out of the jam without surrendering any more runs and only down 11-2.

From there, the Rangers would get four unanswered runs in the bottom of the third and fourth innings, getting a two-run home run in the bottom of the third from McMillan, along with an RBI single from him to go with a sacrifice fly from South McCoy to get to within 11-6.

The Indians added one more run in the top of the sixth inning when Tre Gunn would steal home after being hit by a pitch, but another two runs would answer from the Rangers in the bottom half to move to a 12-8 game going into the seventh.

After Mac Atkins pitched his way through an error and a hit batter without giving up a run, and that is when the real show began.

The bottom of the seventh opened with a pair of fly outs, but Snopek got the action going with a double to keep hope alive. Two walks and two singles later, the bases were loaded and two more runs had cut it to a 12-10 game when McMillan took an 2-0 pitch and blasted a walk-off grand slam over the left field fence to give the Rangers an improbable 14-12 win.

"I lowkey blacked out," McMillan said. "I can't stop smiling. First time experience for me so it was awesome. I got put in a good spot, but anyone in our lineup can do that. I just got lucky."

Carson said he knew if they could work to the heart of the lineup, he had bats there that would give them a chance to do something special.

"When I saw (McMillan) and South coming in the lineup, that's our two strongest kids on the team, and have a chance to run one out of here, and they did," Carson said. "What a phenomenal testament to our kids to not quit and just keep pecking away and keep going."

The win went to Atkins, who went 1.2 innings and picked up a pair of strikeouts. John Griffin Lane was just as vital, throwing three full innings in relief while striking out a pair.

Will Howell, Preston Johnson, and Russell Robbins also saw time on the mound, combining for 2.1 innings of work.

GAME 2 NECC 8 NWCC 7 (8)

Northwest got off to a much better start in the second game of the day, jumping out in front on a sacrifice fly from Hayes Hooker and an RBI groundout from McMillan to go up 2-0 in the bottom of the first.

Darren Randle would get the ball on the mound, and while he had some command issues, surrendering five walks in the game and hitting a pair of batter, he didn't allow a hit through the first four innings and only gave up one run that scored on a wild pitch in the top of the second inning.

The Rangers answered that run with a home run from Preston Johnson in the bottom of the third inning and a leadoff home run in the bottom of the fourth from McCoy that extended the lead to 4-1.

Northeast got going in the top of the fifth when a one out single started a run of five straight Tigers to reach base, and four of them would score with the big blow coming on a three-run home run from Colin Flurry off of Caleb Doty in relief.

Northwest would go down as much as 6-4 before rallying to tie the game at six in the bottom of the seventh inning thanks to a pair of leadoff walks, but Northeast picked up a another two runs on a double and a triple in the top of the eighth and would win it in extras after holding Northwest to just one run in the bottom half.

Doty would take the loss in the game, his first of the season, after pitching three solid innings of relief before running into trouble in the top of the eighth. Randle finished with 4.1 innings of work and only allowed one hit while striking out five. Watkins would pick up his first relief appearance of the year by collecting the final two outs.

Northwest is back in action quickly as they have tournament play in Millington this weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Rangers will face Jefferson College on Friday at 2 PM before playing South Arkansas Community College and Northwest-Shoals Community College on Saturday in pool play of the Perfect Game Invitational. Crossover play will take place on Sunday at 11 AM.

You can find the full schedule online by visiting nwccrangers.com and you can keep up with any news and updates to the Ranger baseball schedule by following Northwest social media accounts.