Sports

Knights lose to CCRI in the Region 21 Finals

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The NECC Knights lost the Region 21 finals in the road to Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) Knights 79 to 67 on Feb. 27.

Before the game, I told Coach Stratton the two best team in the Region 21 is facing off a chance to win a championship

“We are excited for the opportunity hopefully we can play well. CCRI it’s a tough team they only have three loses all year so they tough to beat, especially in their home court it’s going to be extremely difficult I think we got to play a perfect game to do so,” he said.

Stratton say the key to beat CCRI to win the Region 21 championship was  “we have to take away number 24 and number 34 both excellent rebonders that averaging in the high 20s last two games. I think they average over 24 rebound a piece so in order to win we got to keep them off the glass,” Stratton said.

He also told me when he got home after winning the semi-final game to Quincy he was doing a little bit of homework. He started to watch tapes of CCRI to have a strategy to beat them.

NECC Knights vs CCRI Knights Region 21 finals
NECC Knights vs CCRI Knights Region 21 finals Photo by Jose Rodriguez, Sports Editor

It was a 3:00 p.m. tip off at the Vincent A. Cullen Field House building in Warwick,  Rhode Island.

The NECC Knights won tip off against CCRI.

Metin Yavuz of Istanbul, Turkey made the two pointer and Cristian Kinsley of Lawrence made a three pointer.

CCRI was dominating NECC Knights.  CCRI was in a 27 to 7 run. NECC Knights wasn’t playing aggressive.

“I think we didn’t played half way well until the last maybe 6 or 7 minute of the first half and tribute to CCRI they just dominate us today there is no other things I can say about it,” Stratton said.

Daniel Amarante of Lawrence had a few fouls during the first period which hurted the team that him and the number 24 from CCRI almost got double technical.

Elijah Haas thru the ball away CCRI took advantage of it and was making points of the opportunity that NECC Knights missed and couldn’t capitalize. Stratton believe that CCRI played better than them and the difference was playing in Rhode Island.

The Men’s Knights Basketball season come to an end losing to CCRI the 2021-22 Knights was trying to make history by becoming the first Men’s Basketball in program community college history to win a Region 21 championship. They failed short to do it if NECC Knights won they would’ve automatically go in the national tournament in Rockford, Illinois. Acording to NECC Knights Instagram page “Knights will await word on a possible large bid to national tournament.”