The North Central Missouri College women’s and men’s basketball teams won junior college Division 2, Region 16 championships in the same year for the first time in school history on Saturday. In the opener from the Ketcham Community Center, the #10 ranked NCMC Lady Pirates defeated rival Metropolitan Community College 67-38, pushing the Lady Pirates to 16-4 on the season, while dropping the Wolves to 6-8.
NCMC was led by Kennadie Crowe’s 13 points, with Nora Ford adding 11, and Kennadie Kieffer 10 points. For MCC, the leading scorer came from 11 points tallied by sophomore Mackenzi Calloway, with10 points from Jayla McLemore and Brenae Rhone.
Both NCMC and MCC will advance to district competition NEXT weekend (Friday and Saturday), with the two Region 16 teams matched up against six teams from Region 24 (Illinois). The eight teams will be seeded and divided into separate four-team single elimination tournaments, with games to be played at the home courts of the overall #1 and #2 seeds (bracket to be decided Monday). Two teams (the winners from the two tournaments) will advance to the national tournament in Port Huron, Michigan.
On Monday afternoon, the Lady Pirates earned a #4 seed in the district tournament, sending North Central to the campus of #1 seed Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois to play #5 seed Lincoln Land Community College at 4 o’clock on Hot Country Z 101.7 on Friday, April 9th. The top-overall seed, third-ranked Lincoln Land, will take a 19-2 record into a Friday night semifinal, with the district championship game from Mattoon, set for 2 o’clock on Saturday, sending the winner to the nationals.
In the men’s region final on Saturday, the Pirates were led by Atavian Butler with 23 points, Jeramy Shaw with 14 points, and Darius Walsh with 11 points, in defeating St. Louis Community College 80-77. The Archers had 15 points each from Ahian Barnett and David Jones, 12 points from Jacques Thomas, and 11 points each from Kameryn Hubbard and Lyndell Hunt
Just like the women, the NCMC men will go into an eight-team, two-tournament, single elimination bracket with St. Louis and six Illinois schools. While the Lady Pirates make a 300 mile plus trip to their district tests, Coach Jeremy Esry’s Pirates will remain in Trenton, as the #2 overall seed, hosting the “Central District B” tournament this weekend. On Friday afternoon at 3 o’clock, North Central will take on Illinois Central, with #3 seed Spoon River taking on #6 seed Danville at 5 o’clock. The two survivors play Saturday at NCMC for a spot in the national tournament, with tip time set for 3 o’clock.
