On Feb. 17 NECC Knights faced Massasoit Community College on the road. It was a huge game for the Knights they won the conference champion Massachussets Community College Athletic Conference Championship (MCCAC) by defeating Massasoit on the road 79-77. This was the Knights 14 win in a row that it tied the 2006-07 Knights basketball team.

“I think it will be a great opportunity for us here at Massasoit. It’s going to be a really though game Jim Stapleton always does a great job,  has his team ready to play, great bunch of kids I think it will be a great think for the kids to enjoy I told them to enjoy every game as it comes and hopefully this is another one we can enjoy together,” Stratton said.

I asked  Stratton if kids pay attention to winning streak like this, chasing for history.

“I think they just play basketball, one game out a time, see where it takes us…right know they are  focused on Massasoit. I haven’t heard one of the kids talk about winning streak or anything that we’ve  been doing except for let’s go get you know a victory against Massasoit. So we are pretty focused and ready to go,” he said.

The Knights need to control Amari Andrew Brown how is averaging 26.1 points per game heading Feb. 17 contest.

Stratton said he planned to put multiple players on him, especially Cristian Kinsley to deny him a chance to score.

The Knights knew they need to control Eril Tucker Jr. who scored 20 points back in Dec. 9 against the Knight. He is another key factor heading into Feb 17.

The Knights did not start aggressive unlike Massasoit to begin the game, Massasoit were on a 7-2 run to begin the game.

Ashton Ventura of Danveille, N.H., got technical foul for swearing to the referee and did not play for the rest of the game.

Stratton got upset during the first period and he told me what caused his frustration “There is a lot that went on,  we were picking technical fouls and we were doing a lot of stuff that were uncharacteristic and I think it has a lot to do to we didn’t called one set until 10 minutes left in the first half so I got frustrated with that and credit to Massasoit they exposed us tonight and took advantage of our weakness and almost coast us the basketball game,” Stratton said.

Metin Yavuz of Istanbul Turkey who played 20 minutes and scored 4 points with 7 rebounds during the game told me “We could’ve done better our bench really helped us out… after they executed we started to pull it back together,” Yavuz said.

The Knights got a little momentum and start getting in rhythm during the middle of the first period “We played much better we talked about it off the bench after a time out and we started to get after a little bit more especially in the second half,” Stratton said.

Stratton didn’t went to the locker room right away at the half. He talked to his coaching staff before he went to the locker room to talk to his player and the reason because of that he told me it was “We felt three basketball players were really hurting us tonight and they were doing an excellent job we tried to take them away in the second half which Cameron did an unbelievable job with number 11 (Alex Morrison) and we put bunch of guys Phillip (Cunningham), Cristian (Kinsley) , Elijah (Hass) and Greg (Duran) on number 3 (Amari Andrew Brown) and we took away number 22 (Foabi Mbamuku) with just one defender, the kids listen and did very well,” Stratton said.

In the first period the Knights had 8 fouls and Massasoit had 7 the Knights was losing 38-37.

In the first seven minutes and 39 seconds the Knights were a completely different team then the first half. The Knights were on 22-10 run in the second period. Mehmet Asik who played 20 minutes and 19 points told me the key of the game to beat Massasoit was “I believe at that point we were looking for somebody to give us some point and keep us in the game  and Elijah (Hass) give us nine straight point and couple three on midrange like he always do he help us really much,” Asik said.

Stratton told me the spark what happened in the second period “… I challenged them at half and basically said they got to come and compete. We weren’t competing we got rebound by 13 rebound in that first half and that is very uncharacteristic of us. I think the kids got it together and we were much much better in the second half, ” he said.

The Knights were up 79-77 with just 7.7 seconds remaining Mehemet was in the free throw line and he miss both shots which it give Massasoit at least to tie the game to send it to overtime or a game winning three pointer.

Instead the game ended with one of the Massasoit players dribbled the ball in the three point line he pass the ball to the referee thinking that it was one of his teammates it run out of time. The Knights hold on to win a nail biter 79-77 in the road to secure the Massachusetts Community College Athletic Conference.