{"id":32775,"date":"2026-03-03T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/2026\/03\/03\/knights-post-season-win-makes-history\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:35:34","slug":"knights-post-season-win-makes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/2026\/03\/03\/knights-post-season-win-makes-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Knights Win Fourth NJCAA Region 21\/East District Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Haverhill, MA (March 1, 2026) \u2013 The Northern Essex Community College men&#8217;s basketball team is heading back to the National Junior College Athletic Association&#8217;s national tournament for the fourth year in a row. On Sunday, they won their fourth straight NJCAA Region 21\/East District Championship by defeating perennial rival Quincy College. That ties the Region 21 and New England record for consecutive men\u2019s basketball championships.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/03\/2026-Basketball-Champs-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-29832 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/necc.edu\/newsroom2\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2026\/03\/2026-Basketball-Champs-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"men's basketball team stands smiling at the camera\" width=\"499\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Alex Johnson\u2019s (Worcester) layup with 3.8 seconds remaining in the game gave the top-seeded and #2 nationally ranked Northern Essex Community College men\u2019s basketball team their first lead of the game since the 19:00 mark of the first half and sent the Knights to their fourth straight NJCAA Region 21\/East District Championship. With a 68-66 final score, the Knights picked up their 30th win of the season.<\/p>\n<p>In front of a standing room only crowd at the Sport and Fitness Center, Johnson finished with a game-high 23 points, matching the output of Quincy\u2019s Karmari James. For the Knights, Jacob Mercedes (Salem) scored a career high 14 points off the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Trailing for all but 19 seconds in the game and by as many as 10 points at the 10-minute mark of the second half, NECC\u2019s high-pressure defense turned up the volume and forced four Quincy turnovers in the game\u2019s final two minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The Knights&#8217; frontcourt of Christian Sanders (Boston) and Alejandro Delgado (Haverhill) scored eight points apiece in the game.<\/p>\n<p>With a 30-3 overall record, the Knights are likely to receive an opening round bye in the NJCAA National Tournament scheduled for March 11-14th in Herkimer, NY, on the campus of Herkimer College. The 12-team tournament field will be announced on Wednesday at 6:00 pm live on the NJCAA Network.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Johnson was named the Region 21\/East District Tournaments&#8217; most outstanding player.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about athletics at NECC by visiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neccknights.com\/landing\/index\">webpage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haverhill, MA (March 1, 2026) \u2013 The Northern Essex Community College men&#8217;s basketball team is heading back to the National Junior College Athletic Association&#8217;s national tournament for the fourth year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":32778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[681,757],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","category-students-alumni"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - 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