Preview: NECC Baseball opens play Friday in NJCAA North Atlantic District Tournament
Haverhill, MA (May 18, 2021) – With a 20-10 season record and seven previous NJCAA College World Series appearances on their resume, most recently in 2018, the Northern Essex Community College baseball team will open up post-season play on Friday in the North Atlantic District Tournament. The Knights will be the three-seed and lone team from outside of New Jersey to participate in the tournament with the winner advancing to the World Series.
NECC will open play at 11:00am on Friday morning against second seeded and #2 nationally ranked RCSJ-Cumberland. The other opening round game will feature top seeded and #1 nationally ranked RCSJ-Gloucester facing off against fourth seeded Atlantic Cape Community College. The two winning teams and the two losing teams in Friday's opening games will both square off again later on Friday afternoon. Full tournament schedule is below.
Top seeded Gloucester enters the tournament with a 31-4-2 record, followed by Cumberland at 21-6 and Atlantic Cape at 13-12-1. Dating as far back as the 2014 season NECC has never played against either Cumberland or Atlantic Cape. NECC dropped three games to Gloucester in the opening week of the season by scores of 2-0, 12-7 and 7-6. The fourth game of the series was ruled a no-contest. Prior to this season, NECC last played Gloucester in 2016 and eliminated the Roadrunners from the World Series in route to a national runner-up season.
Heading into the post-season the Knights are led on the mound by the one-two punch of Todd Tringale (Saugus) and Levi Burrill (Amesbury). Tringale is 4-1 on the mound with a 1.60 ERA in 45 innings of work. He's struck out 70 batters to only 19 base on balls. Burrill sits at 5-2 on the mound with one save and enters with a 2.37 ERA in 49.1 innings of work, striking out 66 and issuing just nine base on balls. Ronald Luke (Malden) and Alex Sweeney (Raymond, NH) could also be called upon to start in the tournament. Each have thrown more than 22 innings each and have five and three wins respectively.
At the plate, the Knights have five bats in the everyday lineup with an average of .350 or higher. Logan Burrill (Amesbury) leads the attack and provides the power numbers as he boasts a .806 slugging percentage to go along with his .407 batting average. He leads the team with 22 extra base hits, including 10 home runs, 44 RBI's and 21 stolen bases. Nick White (Townsend) is also over the 400 mark at the plate with a .402 clip with 10 extra base hits. Clay Campbell (Hooksett, NH), Jared Copplola (Lynn) and Dylan Duval (Middleton) are checking in with .375, .355 and .351 averages respectively.
The winner of the District Tournament will earn one of six automatic bids the World Series which gets underway on May 29th on the campus of Tusculum University in Greeneville, TN. At the conclusion of District play, the NJCAA will also select two at-large teams to round out the eight team bracket in Tennessee.
Tournament Information:
Website: https://rcroadrunners.com/information/DistrictBase2021 or http://www.region19.org/article/2604.php
Webcast: All Games will be streamed, links will be available on tournament website and www.neccknights.com prior to start of game.
Tournament Seeding:
- RCSJ-Gloucester
- RCSJ-Cumberland
- Northern Essex CC
- Atlantic Cape CC
Tournament Schedule:
Day 1 - Friday May 21st
Game 1 - 11:00AM - #4 Atlantic Cape v. #1 RCSJ-Gloucester played at RCSJ-Gloucester
Game 2 - 11:00AM - #3 Northern Essex (MA) v. #2 RCSJ-Cumberland played at RCSJ-Cumberland
Game 3 - TBD - Loser of Game 1 v. Loser of Game 2
Game 4 - TBD - Winner of Game 1 v. Winner of Game 2
**30 Minutes after the arrival of the teams traveling to opposite sites. RCSJ-Gloucester will remain on their home field regardless of result in Game 1.
Day 2 - Saturday May 22nd (All Games played at RCSJ-Gloucester)
Game 5 - 11:00AM - Winner of Game 3 v. Loser of Game 4
Game 6 - 3:00PM - Winner of Game 5 v. Winner of Game 4 (Championship Game 1)
Day 3 - Sunday May 23rd (Played at RCSJ-Gloucester)
Game 7 - 12:00PM (If-necessary Championship Game 2)