On Tuesday Nov. 29, NECC Knights defeated Bristol Community College Bayhawks 79 to 69. It was Pack the Stands Fan Fest at the game. The Knights extended their winning streak to six games.

Before the game NECC Basketball head coach, Darren Stratton was giving me injury updates.“I don’t think (Ryan) Pacy will be in uniform tonight,” he said. Phillip (Cunningham) is out and also Jeremiah (Melendez) is still out. We hopefully ….get one or two of those kids back by Thursday against CCRI. As far as tonight’s game actually we have four players that are out. ? Darlin Santiago I don’t know if you saw towards the end of the minutes of Suffolk game he pulled his hamstring so he won’t be available at least for a week or two weeks until it tries to heal to get him through,” Stratton said.

Stratton also told me before the game that Melendez went for a light workout and it went well and Cunningham is a high ankle sprain but the good thing is that the swelling has come down. Pacy is still battling with the flu.

The Knights won the tip off and the game started at 6:02 p.m.

The Knights started the game scoring the first four points before Bayhawks attacked and scored the next five that made the game five to four in favor of the Bayhawks.

Luis Reynoso of Lawrence banged in a three pointer that put the Knights ahead.

Bayhawks tied it with two free throws.

Reynoso scored the next two two points shot for the Knights. That made it 11 to 7.

Bayhawks went on a 14-3 run that ended with Peter Lopata of Groveland who scored on a two pointer.

The Knights were trailing 21 to 18 when Cristian Kinsley of Lawrence went on a tear, scoring on three pointers in four different times in a span of less than two minutes.

“I think Cristian was the difference maker tonight. I felt Luis didn’t play well, I felt I could go down the line. I think if Cristian doesn’t shoot the ball the way he did and control the game and draw coverages. I think we (would lose) this basketball game today…,” Stratton said.

That forced Bayhawks to called a full time out and the Knights bench was hyped, they were energized as the Knights had an eight point lead on the Bayhawks, 32 to 24 was the score with 6:49 left remaining in the period.

The Bayhawks were inching closer as the Knights had a five point lead less than four minutes to play in the first half of the game when Reynoso scored for two to increase the Knights lead to seven. That started the Knights 11-0 run to close the first half.

The Knights were up by 15 when they went to their locker rooms at half time with a 45-30 lead. The Knights had four fouls and the Bayhawks three.

The Knights began the second half with a 5-0 run that increased the Knights lead to 20, which was the largest lead for the Knights in this entire game when they were up 50 to 30.

When the game was 52 to 33 the Knights almost blew the lead as the Bayhawks went on a 19 to 2 run against the Knights to make it 54 to 52, making it a two point game still in the Knights favor.

“I felt today it was our worst performance of the year. I think it’s worst than what we lost in Suffolk Community College. I think we need a reality check on some of these guys, some of these guys are walking , thinking just place some up and go out and win and that’s not the case. We need guys that work hard on both ends of the floor. We have a lot of guys uncharacteristically just getting technical, we are trying to get the blame on everyone else but our self,” Stratton said.

Fast forward in the second half when the game was 69-62 with less than three minutes to play Kinsley hit another three to increase the Knights lead by 10.

Knights basketball player Edwin SamMbaka of Paris, France told me that they need to be ready for Thursday game against Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) “We just got to(stay) focused, trust our self, listen to coach and will be alright,” he said.

The Knights ended their five game home stand, the first home stand of the season, by going 5-0.