The men’s and women’s basketball teams from East Central Community College, along with the women of Meridian Community College, have one final chance to continue their 2005-06 basketball seasons when they play in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament at Mississippi College in Clinton this week.

Play at the A.E. Wood Coliseum begins today with four women’s games with the men hitting the court on Tuesday. The women’s winner advances to the NJCAA Division I National Championship at Salina, Kan., with the men’s champion heading to their national tournament at Hutchinson, Kan.

The Northwest Mississippi men and women are the defending region champions.

Holmes (18-7) and Northwest (15-8) get the four-day tournament under way when they tangle at 12:30 p.m. The two met twice during the regular season with each taking home one win.

Meridian (17-10) takes on Southern-Shreveport in the 2:30 p.m. women’s contest. The Lady Eagles met Shreveport twice during the regular season, losing both games.

MCC advanced to the semifinals of last week’s MACJC State Tournament at Senatobia before losing 64-54 to Copiah-Lincoln. MCC led 30-23 with two minutes remaining in the first half.

Holly Dial hit seven 3-pointers to tie Danielle Cooper with scoring honors with 24 points in a 90-87 first-round win over Holmes.

The Lady Eagles are 3-4 in their last seven games.

At 6 p.m., MACJC state champion Northeast Mississippi (21-4) squares off with Gulf Coast (17-9). Northeast defeated Gulf Coast 78-69 in the first round of last week’s state tournamnt.

At 8 p.m., East Central’s Lady Warriors (17-9) take on Copiah-Lincoln (18-7). The teams met twice in the regular season with Co-Lin coming out on top on both occasions by 62-59 and 57-56 scores.

“We’re still playing,” said ECCC head coach Bill Smith. “All we’ve got to do is win one to keep playing.”

The Lady Warriors have gone 4-4 in their last eight games.

“We’ve been up and down,” Smith said. “It depends on which team shows up.”

If ECCC and MCC both win today, they would tangle at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in one of the semifinals.

The women’s championship is slated for 6 p.m. on Thursday with the men’s title game set for 8 p.m.

Gulf Coast (16-10) and state champion Holmes (20-8) begin men’s play at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Holmes whipped Gulf Coast 106-94 in the opening round of the state tournament.

Pearl River (17-10) and Itawamba (16-11) meet at 2:30 p.m.

The ECCC Warriors, 17-9 under first-year coach Steve Hampton, face Northwest (26-2) at 6 p.m. in a rematch of last week’s state tournament match-up, won 97-85 by the Rangers in overtime. Northwest saw its 38-game homecourt win streak snapped with a 99-80 loss to Holmes in the championship game.

“We’re just happy to be there,” Hampton said. “We played them tough the last time. I thought we very well could have won. Hopefully, we’ll get after them and make a run at winning the region tournament.

“I don’t like the fact that they’ll come in after a loss. They’ll be fired up. But I think we showed that we can do some things to bother them. We can beat them inside if we’ll just take care of the basketball. We had too many turnovers last time.”

Copiah-Lincoln (15-8) closes out Tuesday’s competition against Bossier Parish at 8 p.m.