SENATOBIA – The Northwest Mississippi Community College baseball team (13-7) picked up an impressive win as they closed out the non-conference schedule of their season, taking down the #15 Parkland College Cobras (5-7) on Thursday afternoon at Jim Miles Field with a 13-9 come-from-behind win.

"It was a good team that you want to beat so it was a real quality win for us," Head Coach Mark Carson said.

The Rangers were paced by a seven-run inning in the seventh that turned the game around after they started off in a 7-0 hole after just three innings of play.

The Rangers went to Darren Randle on the mound for the start, and after working a clean first inning with only a walk allowed to the leadoff batter, the Cobras got to the Ranger starter in the second inning after the first two batters of the inning reached on a single and a walk. A pair of wild pitches and an RBI groundout would plate both runs as Parkland picked up the early 2-0 lead.

More came in the top of the third with Randle running into trouble with four of the first five batters reaching base, and he would be relieved by Connor Young out of the bullpen. While that slowed the bleeding, a pair of errors in the frame helped the Cobras capitalize and pick up five more runs by the time it was over despite not having any hits louder than their three singles.

"I told them in the third inning, this is Itawamba all over again, so let's just forget the scoreboard, and let's just try to play the game in the game. Let's try to win the next inning, and the next inning, and that's kind of what we did," Carson said.

Northwest was able to break through in the bottom of the fourth after back-to-back singles from Walker Sanders and South McCoy set up the Rangers for a pair of runs, aided by a error on the third baseman for the Cobras with two outs to crack the scoreboard and cut it to a 7-2 game.

Four more runs came across in the bottom of the fifth when the Rangers once again led off with back-to-back singles, this time from Hallas Lawson and Caleb Doty, and a walk to Evan Lightsey would load the bases for South McCoy with two outs.

The sophomore from Tupelo, Mississippi powered a double to plate two runs and by the innings end he would cross the plate as well in a four-run inning that cut the lead to just one for the Cobras at 7-6. There was a bit of controversy on the double, as Carson and the Ranger dugout felt it was a home run, and after an argument with the umpires, Carson was ejected from the game.

"With the situation with the home run there, I was trying to get our kids into it a little more and I think they sensed that. I'm not saying that's what caused the turnaround, but sometimes you have to fight for your team a little bit and that's what I felt like I did," he said.

Parkland answered with a run on a solo home run in the top of the sixth inning on the only earned run that Young would give up in his 3.2 innings in relief. The freshman picked up three strikeouts and worked around four hits, two walks, and two hit batters during the time on the mound to keep the Rangers alive in the game.

That all paid off in the bottom of the seventh when the offense erupted for Northwest.

For the seventh straight inning, the leadoff batter got on for the Rangers and the next six would all follow suit, including a two-run triple from Barrett McKenney which would tie the game at eight, and a three-run home run from Doty that would break the game and the inning open and make it 13-8.

Preston Johnson, who had come in to replace Young in the top of the seventh and worked a clean inning around a single continued into the eighth inning and despite loading the bases was able to get out of it with only one run scoring, and Eli Deberry would pick up an inning of work in the ninth to close out the 13-9 win for the Rangers.

Johnson earned the win for his second of the season as he headlined a bullpen that worked 6.2 innings of three run baseball after the Cobras had picked up the early lead.

Doty and McCoy led the offense for the Rangers as both went 3-4 on the day with three RBIs. All but one Ranger reached base in the game as they combined for 12 hits and eight walks in the game.