BUTLER, Pa. – The Butler County Community College men’s basketball team will compete for a national championship for the first time in the program’s 55-year history.
The Pioneers (20-4) on Wednesday afternoon received one of four at-large bids during the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III selection show broadcast online and will join 11 other teams vying for the national championship March 15-18 in Herkimer, N.Y.
BC3 will face Rochester (Minn.) Community and Technical College (20-7) in the first round of the double-elimination national championship tournament at 4 p.m. March 15.
The Pioneers last year finished 2-16. The program had not had a winning record since at least the 2009-2010 season.
Six of BC3’s 2022-2023 players are new to the program. The introductory text message first-year head coach Joe Lewandowski sent to players the evening of May 14 was named “National Champions.”
“That’s what we wanted, to get to that national championship,” Lewandowski said. “And we’ve made it to the national championship.”
BC3’s Derrick Anderson, the fifth-leading scorer in Division III with a 22.2 points-per-game average, and his teammates watched the NJCAA Division III selection show from the Pioneers’ locker room inside the BC3 Field House.
“Nothing but excitement with each and every one of us,” said Anderson, the NJCAA Division III Region 20 athlete of the month for December and the Division III player of the week twice in February.
“We know what it means to BC3 and the whole community.”
BC3’s Kevaughn Price was selected as the Region 20 athlete of the month for January and is the seventh-leading scorer in Division III with a 21.7 points-per-game average.
“It’s a great feeling,” Price said, “and it’s good to do something that has never been done before.”
Six-foot-9 Jason Baker was the first to respond to Lewandowski’s “National Champions”-labeled text message May 14 with “Let’s do it.”
“We worked hard all year just to get to this point,” said Baker, the Region 20 player of the month for November who leads Division III with 122 blocked shots. “And we are ready to show the world all what we can really do.”
The Pioneers are ranked No. 7 among 97 teams in Division III and are seeded No. 7 in the national championship tournament. Rochester is ranked No. 13 and seeded No. 10.
The winner plays Dallas-North Lake, Irving, Texas, which is 25-6, ranked and seeded No. 2, and is the defending Division III national champion.
Joining Rochester and Dallas-North Lake in BC3’s side of the Division III bracket are Brookdale, Middletown, N.J. (27-3); Fulton-Montgomery, Johnstown, N.Y. (20-6) and DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill. (20-13).
In the other eight-team bracket is Sandhills, Pinehurst, N.C. (28-3). Sandhills is ranked No. 1 in Division III, is the national championship tournament’s top seed and March 4 became the first team to have defeated the Pioneers in BC3’s previous 11 games.
Sandhills earned an automatic bid in the national championship tournament by topping BC3 114-91 in the Division III Mid-Atlantic District tournament in Pinehurst.
“What was awesome is that we got a chance to play the No. 1 team in the country in our division, and we got a chance to see what they were like,” Lewandowski said. “We got a chance to play with them. … We left feeling, ‘Wow. This is a level that we can definitely play at.’”
Anderson scored 31 points against Sandhills, Baker 20, and Price and Todd Simons 19.
“Playing the No. 1 team, that’s the standard right there,” Anderson said. “We know what to expect from any and every team just by playing the No. 1 team like that.”
Said Baker: “I think that was one of the better games Sandhills has played. I think if we get another chance, the score will be a lot closer than it was.”
And Price: “I think we needed that so we know what to work on and where we stand.”
The NJCAA Division III national championship tournament appearance will be the 10th for BC3’s athletics programs since 2002 and the second since the Pioneers’ golf team finished sixth nationally in June.
Troy Loughry is a member of the Pioneers’ golf team, became an All-American at the golf tournament, and is a forward on the BC3 men’s basketball squad.
“We can compete with anyone in the country,” Loughry said. “We knew we were one of the best teams, that our ranking is deserved, and that we’re a dangerous, dangerous opponent.”
Members of BC3’s squad are Anderson, guard, a Boardman, Ohio, High graduate; Baker, forward, Legacy Early College, Greenville, S.C.; Spencer Langas, guard-forward, Slippery Rock; Loughry, guard-forward, Grove City; Price, guard-forward, Bishop Canevin; Austin Rodgers, forward, Butler; Cole Rodgers, forward, Knoch; Simons, guard-forward, Austintown Fitch, Ohio; and Anthony Watson, guard, Bethel Park. Christian Harbaugh is the assistant coach.
