CCBC Essex Faces Big Test This Weekend

The athletic budgets of community colleges, of course, are not on par with Division I sports.

For road trips many major colleges will travel the day before a game and spend the night in a hotel before playing the next day.

That will not be the case on Saturday for the nationally-ranked men's lacrosse team at CCBC Essex, which plays in Long Island, N.Y. against Nassau Community College. Knights coach Shawn Burke told Patch on Thursday his team plans to leave Essex around 6:30 a.m. Saturday,  play that day against Nassau and then head home.

It will be a big test for CCBC Essex, who improved to 7-0 with a 24-4 win over Harford Community College on Wednesday. Nassau has won 21 national titles, with the last coming in 2008. The New York team is coming off a 17-5 win over Brookdale of New Jersey on April 3.

Burke reminded his team after the win over Harford not to be caught up in the one-sided margin of the victory.

"There was some rough play early. They had a player ejected," Burke said of Harford. "Our players did a good job of not getting caught up in that. We are sharing the ball real well. We got to play a lot of guys and not all of our games have been like that. We have a lot of guys who did not get to play in the first three games."

Burke certainly knows the game at Nassau will not be decided by 20 goals, no matter who wins. Nassau was a national power under legendary head coach Richard Speckmann, who stepped down from the head job last June after 40 years and 20 national titles. He is now an assistant coach. The Speckmann coaching tree includes Richie Meade, the head coach at Navy.

"They are very disciplined and well coached," Burke said. "Their players are from Long Island and they take a lot of pride in playing up there. We have to be fundamentally sound."

The two teams rotate home games each season, said Burke, who is in his second season at CCBC-Essex after four years as a coach at Howard County Community in Columbia.

The Knights have been led in scoring so far this season by sophomore Brandon Kendrick (Mt. St. Joe's), Dixon Green (Hereford) and sophomore Luke Phipps (John Carroll), who is listed at 5-foot-9, 140 pounds but has come up big for the team from Essex.

Phipps has scored 24 goals while Green has 14 and Kendrick has 12. Neil Hutchinson and Christian Leone each have 11 for the Knights.

Burke said Kendrick has committed to play next season at Division III power Salisbury while Travis Crane (Eastern Tech), a transfer from UMBC, is leaning toward playing next season for Maryland. The Terps are ranked No. 5 in the country going into Friday night's game at Navy.

Women's Lacrosse Squad Remains Winless

The women's lacrosse team at CCBC Essex fell to 0-6 overall with an 18-4 loss on Monday to Harford in Bel Air. The Knights have been outscored 70-10 in the last four games. CCBC Essex is slated to play Tuesday at Howard Community College in Columbia.

Baseball Hovers Around .500

The CCBC Essex baseball team has been around .500 most of the year and fell to 12-12 overall with a 7-3 loss to Cecil on Wednesday. The Knights play a doubleheader on Saturday at Chesapeake on the Eastern Shore and then host Prince George's Community College on April 13.

One of the key players for the Knights is sophomore catcher David Williams, a product of Eastern Tech. He was hitting .286 in games through Wednesday, while Mike Romano was hitting .357, Matt Edwards was at .355 and Eric Ryan (Patapsco) was hitting .320. Pitcher Nicholas Morton (Parkville) won four of his first five decisions. Romano and Edwards played high school ball in Virginia.

Ford Earns All American Honors in Men's Basketball

Sophomore forward David Ford (North County) was named to the 2010-2011 NJCAA Division II Men's Basketball All American Third Team. 

Ford averaged 18.0 points, 8.95 rebounds and 2.13 blocks per game while leading the Knights to an 18-11 record, fifth place MD JUCO finish and a Region XX semifinal appearance.