Posted: Mar 09, 2016
Wilmington, NC - The 16-team field is set for the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division II Women's Basketball Championship set for March 15-19 at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.
In the programs fourth year of existence, Cape Fear Community College grabbed its first ever Region 10 Title following a 70-68 overtime thriller against Louisburg College. The Sea Devils will make its inaugural appearance at the national event and learned its first-round opponent on Tuesday.
"It's been a little hard, until the brackets came out, to not keep thinking about the Region Championship game." said CFCC First-Year Coach Chris Harris. "It was such an intense game back and forth, with one point here or there deciding the outcome."
Cape Fear earned the No. 6 seed in the bracket after garnering national attention throughout the NJCAA Division II Top 20 poll for most of the season. The Sea Devils face No. 11 St. Clair County Community College from Port Huron, Michigan.
With about one week before the tournament gets underway, Harris and his team will be fine tuning their game over the next few days before departing for the Midwestern part of the United State on Sunday, March 13.
"We are gathering information and watching film now on St. Clair," Harris added. "We come back to practice on Wednesday and will work the first two days on improving us. Friday and Saturday we will have a scouting report ready for our players to see and go over with them in practice. We'll use the travel day as our day off and Monday will be full of meetings and the tournament banquet before we get started."
While Cape Fear is on spring break this week, Harris noted that his players have been building a ton of excitement for his opportunity through text messages and phone calls over the last few days leading up to the news of their tournament opponent and seed.
"I'm looking forward to seeing how our players prepare for this trip," said Harris. "There was not one time this year did we talk about winning games. Their only thought this season was going to Kansas. I'm extremely happy they get an opportunity to play in a National Championship Tournament."
The Sea Devils are 25-1 overall and riding a 25-game win streak into next week. Cape Fear is listed fourth in the nation with a 45.6 field goal percentage. Four players are averaging double figures, including Jasmine Brown (12.3ppg), Destiny Campbell (10.7ppg), Desaree Green (10.3ppg) and Monica Alexander (10.4ppg).
While their offense has averaged 75.8 points per game this season, the Sea Devils have really shined on the defensive end of the floor, ranked eighth in the nation in points allowed (47.0 ppg).
St. Clair (21-10) is coming off their fourth conference title in five years. The Skippers were a five-seed in the district tournament before making the run to qualify for nationals.
Prior to the tournament banquet on Monday, March 14, Cape Fear will get 30 minutes to practice at Johnson Community College and will also practice for about 45 minutes at an off-site gymnasium, according to Harris.
Tip-off between the Sea Devils and St. Clair is set for 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 15. It'll be the fourth of six games on day one of the tournament.
Watch the NJCAA Division II Tournament at NJCAA.TV. Visit http://www.njcaa.org/sports/wbkb/2015-16/div2/national_championship/index for additional information.
Courtesy of Joe Catenacci
