2 more wins means national title for Chipola

By Dustin Kent

Published: March 22, 2007

The Chipola Indians can bring home the school’s first-ever national title with just two more wins at the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament in Hutchinson, Kan. this weekend.

The Indians face the College of Souther Idaho Golden Eagles in tonight’s semifinal round, with a win pushing them into Saturday night’s national title game.

A 78-59 win over Three Rivers Wednesday secured Chipola’s spot in the semifinals after a 74-65 opening round victory over Georgia Perimeter.

Jamarcus Ellis led the Indians for the second straight game with 18 points, six rebounds and five assists.

Ed Berrios added 15 points and five assists and DeAndre Thomas tallied 14 points and nine rebounds for Chipola.

Chipola coach Greg Heiar said he expected a competitive game from Three Rivers, which is coached by junior college basketball’s all-time winningest coach, Gene Bess, but ultimately thought his team’s talent level won out.

“Any time you’re playing a program with that much tradition, you know they’re going to play hard and they’re going to be well-coached,” he said. “We just really tried to pound the ball inside with DeAndre Thomas and Mario Little and they couldn’t guard us down there.”

The Indians, who shot 54 percent from the field for the game, led 34-28 at halftime before blowing it open by outscoring Three Rivers 44-31 in the second half.

“I thought we were more athletic than them,” Heiar said. “I thought it was two teams who played hard, but we just had better players.”

Next up for Chipola is a Southern Idaho team that beat Vincennes and Lon Morris by 11 and 30 points in the first two rounds of action, shooting a whopping 70 percent from the field for the tournament.

“They have great players, they play hard and they pressure you fullcourt for 40 minutes,” Heiar said of the Golden Eagles. “They’re similar to us in that they’ve got 11 guys who can really play. They play like the Dallas Mavericks. They try to outscore you.”

However, Heiar said he always welcomes pressing defenses and an up-tempo game.

“The pressure gives us a chance to get easy baskets, which gets our confidence up” the coach said. “From there, it makes it easier to get in a rhythm and gets baskets inside and outside.”

Chipola made it to the national semifinals just two years ago before being defeated convincingly by Moberly.

Heiar said that he learned a lesson about preparing for the semifinal round, deciding to give his players the day off Thursday instead of putting them through a hard practice, as he did two years ago.

“I just think that rest is the most important thing at this point,” the coach said. “We’ve just had two tough games back-to-back that were very competitive. We have guys who have had to play a lot of minutes and I want to make sure they get some rest.”

The other two spots in the semifinal round were to be determined Thursday night with the winners of Seminole State vs. Midland and Itawamba vs. Coffeyville to play Friday for a spot in the title game.

While each team still alive in the tournament possesses the potential to cut the nets down, Heiar said feels confident that his team won’t be overmatched against anyone.

“I feel really comfortable,” he said. “We’ve just got to execute, play hard and play together. If we do that, we’re a hard team to beat.”

The Indians tip with the Golden Eagles at 6 p.m. tonight and can be heard on WJAQ 100.9 FM.