The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

A PAIR of former junior national team players saw the postseason runs for their respective programmes come to an end in the NJCAA Division I Tournament Final Four.

Elisee’s Triton College Trojans and Albury’s Chipola College were both eliminated in opposite sides of the bracket in Saturday’s national semifinals at the Hutchinson Sports Arena in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Triton, the no.11 seed, suffered a 68-64 loss to Northwest Florida State College. Elisee finished with eight points and six rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench. They concluded the season 30-6.

Triton led for 32 minutes, including a 40-32 lead at the half and 62-55 advantage with 6:49 to go in in regulation. Northwest Florida State would end the game on a 13-2 run to advance to the title game.

Elisee averaged 8.8 points and five points in four tournament games. In 32 games with 18 starts, Elisee, the 6’9” freshman forward averaged a team leading 3.3 blocks, 9.6 points, and 4.3 rebounds per game.

“I’m thankful for the players for trusting a first-year head coach when they could have gone to a lot of other places,” Triton head coach John Clancy said.

“Without the hard work of the players and my assistant coaches, this journey does not happen, and what a heck of a ride it has been. We know we have more work to do and we’ll reload and hopefully come back here next year with a different result.”

Albury and no.5 seeded Chipola suffered a 70-68 loss to the no.1 seed Salt Lake Community College Bruins. He finished with eight points in 14 minutes off the bench.

Chipola finished just shy of a second consecutive appearance in the NJCAA Championship Game.

Following a bye in round one, they opened with an 85-62 win over Hutchinson Community College.

The SLCC Bruins led 36-33 lead at halftime over Chipola and led 62-54. Chipola quickly responded with 1:02 left in the game and took a 68-66 lead. The Bruins scored the last four points of the game to advance.

For the tournament, Albury averaged 6.3 points per game. In his first season with the programme, he averaged 4.4 points on 52 percent shooting from the field.