Box Score
HAGERSTOWN, Md. – Harold Washington connected on the first of two free throws and teammate Jermaine Edwards scored on the put-back with 11 seconds left in the game to seal the 82-78 win for No. 1 Cecil College over No. 3 Baltimore City Community College in the championship game of the 2011 NJCAA Region XX Division II Tournament on Sunday afternoon at the RAC Center.
Cecil (28-5) will be the Region XX Division II representative at the NJCAA Tournament in Danville, Ill. in three weeks.
BCCC had three players named to the All-Region XX Team and two all-tournament recipients. Micah Fraction (Silver Spring, Md./Montrose Christian) earned First-Team All-Region honors, while Brandon Belt (Odenton, Md./Arundel HS) and Kendal Williams (Dover, Del.) were named to the second-team and third-team, respectively. Fraction and Belt also earned all-tournament honors.
Cecil got on the board first when Omar Strong connected on two free throws following a technical foul that was assessed to the Panther bench just 29 seconds into the game. The game was extremely close for most of the first half until the Seahawks jumped out to a 10-point (25-15) lead after a 3-pointer by Brandon Bobb-Jones with 10:48 left in the half.
The Seahawks still led by 10, 37-27, with 5:55 left before halftime, but BCCC went on a 13-6 run to cut Cecil's lead to three, 43-40, at the break.
Cecil led by as many as 11 points late in the second half. However, the Panthers slowly chipped away at the lead and got within one, 79-78, after a key shot by Christian Diboko (Kinshasa, Congo) with 23 seconds left in the game. Edwards fouled Diboko on the shot, but Diboko missed the ensuing free throw and the Seahawks came up with the rebound.
Edwards, the tournament Most Valuable Player, scored a game-high 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting from the field. He added nine rebounds, two assists, two steals and one block in 38 minutes. Khaalis Coppock-Bey had 16 points and seven boards, while Strong and Washington finished with 13 and 12 points, respectively. Brandon Green grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds.
Fraction led BCCC with 21 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the floor, including 1-of-6 from beyond the arc and 10-of-12 from the charity stripe. Belt and Eric Barksdale (Baltimore, Md./Dunbar HS) each had 12 points, and Diboko had a game- and career-high 14 rebounds. He also added eight points, two assists and a game-high three blocks. In the three tournament games, Diboko averaged 12.7 boards per game.
