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Yuma, Arizona - Arizona Western College will host the Region I Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Game Saturday night, March 8^th, at ‘The House’ on the AWC Campus. The top-seeded Matadors will face 2^nd-seeded Eastern Arizona College in a 7:30PM tipoff. 

 

The top-seeded Matadors earned the right to host the Region I Finals 10 days ago, when they knocked off Glendale Community College February 26^th in the team’s regular season home finale. That win earned the Matadors their first outright ACCAC Regular Season title in 3 seasons, and gave them a playoff bye all the way to the championship game. The 2^nd-seeded Gila Monsters earned the trip to tonight’s game on Thursday night when they triumphed over 3^rd-seeded Mesa Community College, 70-68, in the Region I Semifinals in Thatcher.

 

This will be the 2^nd straight year that these two teams have met in the Region’s final Division I game. Last year, the venue was Guitteau Gymnasium in Thatcher, and the 2^nd-seeded Matadors (who actually were the ACCAC Regular Season Co-Champs, but lost the tiebreaker to Eastern Arizona on the final night of the regular season) defeated Eastern Arizona on the Gila Monsters’ home floor, 81-63, putting the Matadors in the District I Championship, which they would lose three nights later to 9^th-ranked College of Southern Idaho, 99-89, in Salt Lake City, Utah. There is no District I Championship this season, so the winner of Saturday’s game will receive a berth in the NJCAA Tournament, which begins Tuesday, March 18^th in Hutchinson, Kansas. A Matador win tomorrow night would send them to ‘Hutch’ for the 3^rd time in 4 seasons, and earn them their 4^th straight Region I title. The Gila Monsters are trying for their first trip to the NJCAA Tournament since 1995, when they finished the regular season a perfect 30-0.