North Lake Overcomes Brookdale, Will Play for National Championship

HERKIMER, N.Y. – Dallas College North Lake men's basketball team will play for a national championship.

Top-seeded North Lake erased a 16-point deficit, storming back to beat fifth-seeded Brookdale Community College, 79-72, Friday in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III semifinals. The Blazers (28-4) will play host Herkimer College (29-2) in Saturday's 4 p.m. CT national title game.

North Lake will be making its fifth appearance in the national championship game. The Blazers won championships in 2006, 2008, 2017 and 2022.

Bryson Smith scored 28 points behind 8 of 10 three-point shooting to key North Lake's comeback. He had 19 points in the second half.

The Blazers trailed by 16 with 4:27 left in the first half, but used a 10-0 run, keyed by back-to-back triples by Jakob Zenon and Smith, to trim the deficit to 39-33. Ring Deng's basket with 13 seconds in the half sent the Blazers into the break down 41-35.

Darnell Askew's layup 4:43 into the second half gave Brookdale, the defending national champs, a 50-43 lead. But Autavius Hobbs canned back-to-back threes to give North Lake its first lead, 52-51, since the opening minute of the game. Smith's 3 at the 12:05 mark put the Blazers on top, 57-53. The Jersey Blues (28-2) tied it on Adam Kukaj's dunk less than a minute later.

Over the next five minutes, the lead swayed back and forth, with Smith burying another 3, Askew scoring on a dunk and a layup, and Hobbs converting a lay-in and sinking two free throws. Randy Woolf's layup with 6:00 on the clock gave the Blazers a three-point lead. Smith sank a pair from the stripe to extend the lead to five.

Brookdale cut it to 68-67 on Manny Bell's basket at the 3:46 mark before Deng scored two possessions later. Smith's jumper pushed the lead back to five. Bell's two free throws with 1:45 to go pulled the Jersey Blues within three. Woolf scored on the next possession on a find from Deng. Then Deng scored after Woolf grabbed a defensive rebound to make it a seven-point game. Jack Zink hit a 3 five seconds later as Brookdale drew within 76-72. But Zenon sank two free throws, and Anden Holmes made another to tuck the victory away.

Zenon had 15 points and four steals. Hobbs added 14 points. Holmes had eight points, four rebounds and three assists. Woolf and Deng each scored six points. Deng pulled down 10 boards, and had three assists. Woolf had nine rebounds and a block, while Smith grabbed eight boards, and had four steals and a block.  

Brookdale's Savon Myers finished with 21 points, seven rebounds, four assists, four steals and a block, while going 8 of 15 from the field, including 5 of 8 from long distance. Askew had 12 points, nine boards and eight blocks. Kareem Irby had 11 points, and Bell 10 points, six rebounds and two blocks.

After going 7-for-15 from the 3-point line in the first half, the Jersey Blues went 2-for-9 after the break. North Lake held Brookdale to 36.4 percent field goal shooting in the second half. The Jersey Blues hit 29 of 68 field goals in the game for 42.6 percent. The Blazers hit seven triples in each half, and shot 43.8 percent from behind the arc in the game. North Lake was 27 of 70 from the floor for 38.6 percent.

Watch the national championship game on the NJCAA Network or follow the live stats.