Playoff Preview: Men’s soccer earns top seed, volleyball heads to Holyoke
Northern Essex Community College men’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams are heading into the post-season with both teams in action on Friday evening.
Haverhill, MA (October 29, 2025) – With October coming to a close, the Northern Essex Community College men's soccer and women's volleyball teams are heading into the post-season. On the pitch, soccer has earned the top seed in the tournament and home field advantage throughout the tournament for a third consecutive season, while volleyball has earned the fourth seed in tournament and will head to Holyoke for a semi-final match up.
Men's Soccer:
The Knights, receiving votes in the final NJCAA soccer poll of the season, earned an opening round bye and will play host to Springfield Tech on Friday evening at 7:00pm at Whittier Tech High School. Springfield the tournaments fifth seed defeated Community College of Rhode Island 2-1 in double overtime on Tuesday afternoon to advance. NECC closed out the regular season last Tuesday by defeating Springfield 2-1 to secure the top seed in the tournament.
A Friday night win would advance NECC to the championship game on Sunday evening. The Knights are looking for their second straight title and looking to become the first repeat champion since Bunker Hill won three straight from 2016-2018. The other semi-final features third seeded Bristol traveling to second seeded Quinsigamond on Friday.
Heading into the post-season, three Knights have double digit point totals led by Christian Colem (Nashua, NH) who leads the team with 16 points on five goals and six assists. He's followed by Maxim Chris (Lexington) who has a team best six goals to go along with an assist for 13 points, while Ilembo Kiza (Lowell) has five goals on a season.
Oriol Jean (Haiti) spearheads a defensive unit that has held conference opponents to just five goals on the season, while the Knights have scored 22 goals in conference matches enroute to 7-1 region record. Dylan Gavin (Methuen) has seen the bulk of the action in goal this season with a 1.49 goals against average in 10 games over 844 minutes of action.
The tournament winner will advance to the eight-team national tournament in Herkimer, NY scheduled to get underway on November 11th.
Volleyball:
The Knights will enter as the fourth seed in the tournament and will look to pull an upset on the top seeded Cougars on Friday night. NECC will enter the post-season with a 12-7 record having fallen to Holyoke twice by scores 3-0 and 3-1.
Bunker Hill and Community College of Rhode Island will battle in the other semi-final, with the championship match set for Sunday. The region champion will head to the 16-team national tournament in Cedar Rapids, IA set to begin on November 13th. NECC is looking for their first region championship since 2023.
The Knights attack has been led this season by Cherly BritoRosario (Lawrence) and Crismary DeLeon (Lawrence) who are both averaging over two kills per set with 162 and 112 respectively over the course of the season. Rachelle Torres (Lawrence) has handed out a team best 235 assists.
Defensively BritoRosario leads the team with 197 digs, while also serving up 54 aces.
Friday's match is set for 7:00pm at the Bartley Center.