Nassau CC advances in junior college Division III tournament
Nassau Community College's Marc Campbell gets inside during the NJCAA Division III National Tournament where Nassau Community College defeated Eastfield City College from Mesquite, TX at Sullivan Community College in Loch Sheldrake, New York on March 10, 2016. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
LOCH SHELDRAKE, N.Y. — When starting point guard Edwin Sainvil went down due to injury for the Nassau Community College men’s basketball team in the regional championship, coach A.J. Wynder didn’t panic. He knew the answer to Sainvil’s replacement was already on the court.
Marc Campbell, of Elmont, has been one of the team’s primary scorers throughout the season at shooting guard. On Thursday, he excelled at his new role running the Lions’ offense.
“My teammates, they believe in me,” Campbell said, “so I had to do it for them.”
Campbell finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists to lead No. 4 Nassau Community College over No. 5 Eastfield City College (Texas), 97-86, in the National Junior College D-III men’s basketball championship quarterfinal at SUNY Sullivan in Loch Sheldrake on Thursday.
The Lions (27-5) play No. 1 Rock Valley (31-3) on Friday at 7 p.m. in the semifinal.
Eastfield entered the game as the NJCAA D-III highest scoring team, averaging 101.9 points. The Lions knew their defense needed to set the tone because a track meet likely wouldn’t have gone their way.
“We were aggressive defensively,” said Kavione Green of Amityville, who had 24 points. “We got out to [their] shooters. They like to shoot the threes so we got out to the line for threes. We kept getting stops then we kept getting scores.”
After a back-and-forth opening 13 minutes, the Lions closed the half of a 20-6 run as Ulie Mickens (Glen Cove) provided what Wynder called a “big boost” off the bench with 12 points and seven rebounds to give Nassau a 39-31 lead. Campbell led the Lions with 14 first-half points.
“We just played together, honestly,” Campbell said. “Coach told us we have to win this so we had to play together; play to win and not play not to lose.”
Green scored 13 straight points for Nassau in the middle of the second half as it opened a 75-54 lead with 8:17 remaining. Campbell found Green for three of the five baskets, due to a chemistry the two have since playing AAU basketball together.
Eastfield climbed back into the game, pulling to within nine points (81-72) with 4:43 remaining, led by Ed Williams’ 39 points on 15-of-24 shooting, including 8-of-15 beyond the arc. The Lions finished the final minutes with free throws and forcing turnovers.
“Sometimes it doesn’t look like we play well from ahead because sometimes we get large leads and then we get complacent,” Wynder said. “We were trying to tell the guys to stay focused and when we got up, I think it was 21, we wanted to keep our foot on the pedal.”
Campbell’s 26 points came on 8-of-12 shooting, including 3-of-3 from deep. Green shot 7-of-12 and 3-of-3 from deep for his 24 points.
Despite Eastfield shooting half its shots from beyond the arc (37 shots), Nassau shot much more efficiently from deep (9-of-14) for 64.3 percent compared to Eastfield’s 32.4 percent (12-of-37).
