Raiders to Meet Artichokes in the NJCAA DII Tournament
The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) has announced the pairings for the Division II national tournament, which will be held Nov. 17-19 in Charleston, WV. Central Community College is seeded eighth in the 16-team tournament and will play the ninth-seed Scottsdale Community College (AZ) in the sixth match on the opening day of competition. The match is set to begin at 12 noon central time on Nov. 17. CCC fans can watch the opening round match and all others by logging onto www.njcaatv.com.
"We are excited to be back at the national tournament," said CCC head coach Mary Young. "Obviously to be at that point, you have to beat everyone, and that's the attitude we're going to take. We're going to take one match at a time, and we're going to attempt to beat everyone."
The Raiders qualified for the national tournament for the sixth consecutive year by winning the District G playoff title over the North Dakota State College of Science. CCC is 29-9 on the season and winner of 10 consecutive matches heading into the national tournament. The Raiders are 15-5 on neutral courts.
The Fighting Artichokes are 14-11 on the season and punched their ticket to the national tournament by defeating top-seed Glendale Community College in the Region I Division II playoff. SCC has won eight straight matches heading into the national tournament. Ironically, the Fighting Artichokes' last loss was to Glendale CC back on Nov. 5. SCC is a member of the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference.
"We'll have our work cut out for us with Scottsdale," said Young. "We will definitely have to be on top of our A game and will have to defend well. They typically run a pretty productive offense and hopefully we can counter that with our defense and attack the ball."
CCC is one of two community colleges from Nebraska that made the national tournament. Northeast Community College is the 13th seed and will take on fourth-seed Catawba Valley (NC) in the first round.
Four others schools that CCC met during the regular season made the national tournament, including the overall top seed Parkland College (IL). The others are McHenry County Community College (IL), Kirkwood Community College (IA) and Johnson County Community College (KS). CCC defeated McHenry, 3-0, at the Kirkwood tournament on Sept. 9. The Raiders shut out Kirkwood, 3-0, at the Johnson County Community College Challenge on Oct. 1, and then met the host Cavaliers in the next match, falling 3-1.
All matches in the national tournament will be played at the Charleston Civic Center. First round and quarter-final round matches will be played on Thursday, Nov. 17. The semifinals will be played on Friday, Nov. 18, and the championship match will be played at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 19.