For the fourth consecutive year, the Northern Essex Community College Knights baseball team will head to the NJCAA World Series.
After a perfect 15-0 record in the Region XXI competition, they emerged from the Region XXI Baseball Tournament unscathed, with a perfect 3-0, toppling Holyoke Community College 17-7 in the title game.
Ranked eighth nationally, this is the Knights third straight World Series trip under head coach Jeff Mejia.
“I’m very excited to be back,” Northern Essex head coach Jeff Mejia said. “It is a new location this year and it should be interesting. I’m really looking forward to getting to North Carolina. We know the routine now and that should definitely help us.”
The Knights join seven other junior colleges in Kinston, N.C., from May 23-29 for the NJCAA World Series.
NECC (28-2) scored early and often against a Holyoke (11-13) pitching staff that ran out of gas coming through the loser’s bracket. In total the Knights pounded out 20 hits, eight going for extra-bases.
The victory extended the Knights’ winning streak to 23 consecutive games dating back to March 18.
“It’s been a great run,” Mejia said. “These kids always step up. They are a group of baseball players, that the tighter the game is the better they play.”
With campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, Northern Essex Community College offers over 70 associate degree and certificate programs as well as hundreds of noncredit courses designed for personal enrichment and career growth. More than 7,400 students are enrolled in credit associate degree and certificate programs on the Haverhill and Lawrence campuses; and another 6,700 take noncredit workforce development and community education classes on campus, and at businesses and community sites across the Merrimack Valley. Northern Essex is the only state college located in the lower Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts. For more information, visit the website at www.necc.mass.edu.