No. 7 Indians pick up historic win in dramatic fashion

No. 7 Indians pick up historic win in dramatic fashion
Adam Gore/LetsGoICC.com

FULTON, MS – Itawamba Community College moved to 5-0 for the first time ever in the history of the football program with a 27-21 Homecoming win over Northwest Mississippi Community College on Saturday.

And once again, it came in dramatic fashion.

The game-winning touchdown came on fourth down when sophomore running back Chris Ingram (Southaven) powered his way into the end zone from one-yard out after being denied on the first three attempts.

"I thought if we couldn't move the ball six inches, we didn't deserve to win," said ICC football coach Jon Williams. "This was the first time we had been behind all year and it made us grow up a lot after being smacked in the face with some adversity."

Ingram finished the night with 30 yards and a pair of one-yard touchdown runs on 13 carries.

Northwest (1-4, 1-2 MACJC North) drove the ball to the Indians' 16-yard line before sophomore linebacker CJ Jackson (Water Valley) forced a sack on fourth down allowing ICC to kneel their way to the six-point victory.

Jackson recorded 4 tackles, all solo, with 1 sack and 1 tackle for loss.

"A lot of guys made some great plays tonight on both sides of the ball," Williams commented. "Down this final stretch we need to be able to open it up more to be able to score a lot more points."

"Defense is playing pretty salty, but offensively we just got to be able to do what we want to do and not what the defense dictates that we do. We've still got a long way to go, but we are still growing and still maturing."

ICC jumped out to a 14-0 lead on a 4-yard run by Griff Loftis (Mooreville) and an 80-yard pass to JarNardreon Jones (Noxubee County) from Loftis before the Rangers rallied with 21-unanswered points capped off by a 75-yard fumble returned for a touchdown in the closing seconds of the first half.

Loftis finished the night with 375 yard passing with a touchdown and interception on 27 of 39 passing. Jones hauled in a career-high 152 yards and a touchdown on 5 catches while Jarvis Bentley (Carver, GA) added 104 yards on a career-high 12 catches.

The Indians rolled up 470 yards of total offense while holding the Rangers to 270 offensive yards. Carderious Dean (Byhalia) led the Indians defense with 8 tackles (5 solo; 3 assists) with half of a sack.

The win snapped the Indians' six-game losing streak to Northwest.

The Indians improved to 3-0 in MACJC North and will step out of division play when they travel to Copiah-Lincoln Community College to take on the defending state champion on Thursday.

"It's going to be tough with a short week to prepare for a really good football team, but they have a short week also so there's no real advantage for either team," said Williams. "We've just got to get ready and prepare ourselves to go down there to continue this road we're walking."

The No. 4 Wolves (4-1, 2-1 MACJC South) lost a shootout against No. 9 Jones County Junior College (5-0; 3-0 MACJC South) 50-47 on Saturday.

Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. and the game can be heard on WAFM 95.7 FM and watched online at LetsGoICC.com starting at 6:40 with the Davis Ford Pre-Game Show.  

For more information on ICC football, follow ICC Athletics on Twitter (@LetsGoICC).