Salt Lake Community College Falls Flat In NJCAA Title Game
Mar 19, 2022, 6:43 PM
(Photo courtesy of Salt Lake Community College Athletics)
(Photo courtesy of Salt Lake Community College Athletics)
SALT LAKE CITY – Northwest Florida State threw the first punch, staggering the Bruins early and SLCC never recovered as the bright lights of championship Saturday proved too much in the 83-67 loss.
The No.1 seed Salt Lake Community College Bruins (35-2) faced the Northwest Florida State Raiders (31-5) for the NJCAA Division 1 national championship on Saturday, March 19.
The Bruins couldn’t get anything to fall early, hitting only two shots from the floor in the opening four minutes. During that span, 10-seed Northwest Florida State built a 17-7 lead.
Two terrific teams face off in the @NJCAA Div. I men’s basketball national championship. The one seed @SLCCbasketball and 10th seed @NWFRaiders_MBB. #NJCAAmbb pic.twitter.com/uTRkUl4iV8
— Billy Watson (@billywatson4l) March 19, 2022
Another extended cold stretch for SLCC allowed Northwest Florida State to close the half on a 24-4 run. Turnovers, poor shot selection and a lack of stops combined to snowball into a nightmare first half for SLCC.
For a team that had played in four one possession games in the regular season, three straight down to the wire victories may have caught up to head coach Kyle Taylor’r Bruin team as they appeared to run out of gas in the first half against a relentless Raider team. Seemingly nothing could go right in the opening half for the Bruins while every bounce and call appeared to go the way of Northwest Florida State.
It's 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 day in Hutch 🏆
Ahead of tonight's #NJCAAmbb DI Championship final, presented by Bob McCloskey Insurance, check out some of the top moments from the 2022 tournament!
Photo gallery 📸 https://t.co/eLOLArmR1k pic.twitter.com/r1K0rWgDzb
— NJCAA Basketball (@NJCAABasketball) March 19, 2022
The Raiders took a 41-15 lead into the break.
Looking for anything positive to open the door for a comeback, the Bruins used a 9-2 run to open the second half. The run cut the Raider advantage to 19 with under 17 minutes left. Northwest Florida State immediately answered, hitting a three and a layup to lift the lead above 20 once again.
Despite a much improved second half, the hole proved to be too big and too deep for the Bruins to dig their way out of. Their 67 points scored equals their lowest output as a team this year.
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