Prince George’s Dominant in Region 20 Tournament, Capture 10th Program Championship

Novak Field House at Prince George's Community College was the place to be this past weekend if you're an Owls fan. Hosting the NJCAA Region 20 Division III Tournament for the first time since 2018-19, the Owls entered as the number one overall seed and did not disappoint the home crowd as they rolled to dominating victories on both days of action to claim their first region title since the 2021-22 season.

Saturday's pair of semi-final contests were drastically different styles of play as Prince George's set a new season-high in scoring while cruising to a 109-56 victory over the fourth seeded Pennsylvania Highland Black Bears. All thirteen of the Owls players scored in their 43-point victory on Saturday whereas the other semi-final matchup between #2 seed Allegheny County and #3 seed Butler County came down to a buzzer beater by Allegheny's Wildcats to send them into Sunday's Championship game at noon.

After some back and forth over the game's first few minutes, Prince George's made it clear that they were not going to let CCAC hang around for too long as the Owls built up a 15-point lead, 49-34, heading into halftime. Sophomore Jasir Tremble (Washington, D.C.) and Avery Scott (Glenn Dale, MD) led all scorers at the break with 20 and 11 points, respectively. Prince George's was shooting an efficient 47% (15-32) from the floor at the break and capitalized on their free throw opportunities, hitting on 14 of 16 attempts.

The Owls came out of the intermission with their same attitude in the first half as they buckled down on defense, holding the Wildcats to only 25 points while managing to grow their lead to as many as 45 points with 5:22 remaining in the contest. Novak continued to stay loud as time ticked away and sealed the Owls 96-59 victory, officially returning the region trophy back to Largo after a one-year hiatus to give the team their 10^th Region Championship in program history.

Tremble finished as the leading scorer with 31 points while Scott nearly had a double-double with 16 points, 8 rebounds. Landis was just a point behind with 15 to go with 4 boards. All three were named to the All-Tournament team alongside teammate Saveon Jackson (Kentland, MD) as Tremble took home MVP honors. Prince George's led the way with four all-tournament selections while Allegheny and Butler County each had one apiece.

2024 Region 20 DIII All-Tournament Team:

Rocco Spadafora, Butler County

Nick Delgratta, Allegheny County

Jailin Landis, Prince George's

Saveon Jackson, Prince George's

Avery Scott, Prince George's

Most Valuable Player:

Jasir Tremble, Prince George's

With the win, the Owls advance to the Mid-Atlantic District Championship where they will host the Region 10 Champions, Sandhills Community College on Saturday, March 2^nd at 3 PM. The winner of Saturday's District Championship earns an automatic bid to the 2024 NJCAA DIII Men's Basketball Championship held in Herkimer, New York as one of twelve teams in contention for a National Title from March 13-16.