Mavs earn back to back trip to Hutch
reposted from NOC-Tonkawa sports information
ENID, Oklahoma — The NOC Mavs earned their second straight trip to the NJCAA National Championships with a thrilling 66-64 win over NOC Enid Saturday at the Stride Bank Center.
The NJCAA National Tournament runs April 19-24 at the Sports Arena in Hutchinson, KS. The 24 team single elimination tourney includes 16 District Champion automatic qualifiers and 8 national at-large selections. All 24 teams are seeded with top eight teams receiving byes.
The Mavericks received the No. 2 seed and will play their first game on Tuesday, April 20 at 6:30 CDT. The Mavs will play the winner of the #15 seed Vincennes University/#18 Holmes CC (MS) game, which tips off Monday at 2:00 CDT. All games in the tournament can be viewed (for a small fee) on NJCAATV. Go to http://njcaa.org/network.
The Mavs (23-1) completed the sweep winning the OCAC regular season crown and the Region 2 Tournament.
NOC also avenged an earlier 66-62 loss to NOC Enid, the only loss of the season for the 7th ranked Mavs. Saturday’s game was also the first time that any two NOC programs have competed in the championship game of the Region 2 Tournament in the same year. The Mavs have now won 12 straight.
JD Ray led the Mavs with 24 points while Tyrel Morgan added 18, and Nate Goodlow 11.
“What a game,” said Mavs coach Donnie Jackson. “That is what a region championship game should look like. Both teams battled hard and competed. Very excited we punched our ticket to Hutch.”
“I’m really excited for the guys,” Jackson added. “We overcome a couple of deficits and found a way to win. They deserve the opportunity to represent Region 2 at the National tournament. This has been a special group of sophomores and I want to keep it going for as long as we can.”
Saturday’s game was close as close can be as the Mavs led the majority of the first half but after the Jets took a late lead, Goodlow drilled a 3-pointer with :10 left to give the Mavs a 35-34 lead at the break.
The second half saw four ties and eight lead changes with a short Morgan jumper giving the Mavs a 58-57 lead they would not relinquish.
Morgan’s jumper started a 7-2 run with the Mavs leading 65-59 with 1:39 left.
The Jets hung around as a Teyan Scanlan 3-pointer and a Quinten Harvey layup cut the lead to 65-64 with :49.2 left.
Ray then hit one of two at the line to give the Mavs a 66-64 lead.
The Jets had one last opportunity but Andrew O’Brien’s 3-pointer was off the mark at the buzzer. The Jets finished the year at 17-5.
Morgan and Ray combined for 11 of the Mavs’ final 13 points in the last 7:00.
JD Ray was named the All-Tournament MVP while Tyrel Morgan and Avante Lederer were also named to the all tourney team.
