Worcester, MA (May 14, 2023) – The Northern Essex Community College baseball team pounded out 21 hits, including nine extra base hits on their way to a 29-10 victory over Community College of Rhode Island on Sunday afternoon to capture their second straight Region 21 Championship and improve their overall record to 33-6 on the season.
With the win, NECC advances to the NJCAA Northeast District Championship, where they will travel to Brooklyn, NY for a best of three series against Region 15 Champions Kingsborough Community College beginning on Friday. Games times will be announced at a later time.
The three through fiver batters in the Knights line-up played a major role in high powered offense as Cooper Smith (Bloomington, MN) Anthony Marcano (Boston, MA) and Richard Matos (Boston, MA) combined for nine hits (three each) and 14 RBIs on the afternoon.
Kyle Hsu (Brookline, NH), Joe Settle (Melbourne, FL) and Matos all recorded home runs on the afternoon, highlighted by Matos second inning three run bomb which was estimated at 530 feet as it cleared the 16-foot left field fence, the hill beyond the fence and well on Marble St in Worcester.
Kameron Levesque (Hookset, NH), Lucas Berube (Dighton), Kevin Rodriguez (Manchester, NH) and Settle also had multiple hits in the game.
After going 12 innings on Saturday in the semi-final game, NECC burned Tristan Ciampa (Wilmington) who was Sunday's projected starter and turned to sophomore Riley Stys (Lowell) who was the first of five Knights to take the mound on Sunday. He went 2.2 innings, striking out five, walking five, while allowing four runs on six hits. Relfin Jimenez (Lawrence) came on to throw two innings of three hit, three run relief.
Eric Whitehead (Wilmington) added 1.2 innings of three run, three hit baseball before Alex Sweeney (Raymond, NH) and Ciampa closed the door on the championship not allowing a hit over the games final 2.2 innings.
Levesque was the named the region tournaments Most Outstanding Player.
Heading to the District Championship, NECC will be looking to make their ninth World Series appearance in program history and eighth since 2012. The winner of the three game series will head to Greenville, TN for the World Series beginning May 27th.