MMA teammates top 1,000-point plateau

Scoring 1,000 career points is a nice accomplishment for any basketball player.

Sunday afternoon, two Maine Maritime Academy women’s teammates achieved the feat during the same game.

Juniors Julia Knights of Brookton and Shelley Gott of Tremont each registered her 1,000th career point during the Mariners’ 84-38 North Atlantic Conference victory over Johnson State at the Margaret Chase Smith Gymnasium.

“It’s always special when you have a player reach this milestone, but to have two kids do it in the same game is unbelievable,” said MMA coach Craig Dagan.

Knights, a 5-foot-11 guard/forward, was the first to put her name in the MMA record book. The former Woodland High star connected on a 3-pointer three minutes into the contest.

Gott, a 5-10 swing player who played her high school ball at Mount Desert Island, answered four minutes later when she scored off an offensive rebound.

“We found it ironic that I reached it with a 3-pointer and Shelley got it with an offensive rebound,” Knights said. “Shelley is our best 3-point shooter and has scored most of her points back there and I have done the majority of my work on the offensive glass over the past few years.”

Knights and Gott are the fourth and fifth players, respectively, to score 1,000 points in the 10-year history of the MMA program.

“We are so proud of what they have done for this school, basketball program and community here in Castine,” Dagan said. “I’m not sure how many teams have had this happen on the same day, but we find it very fitting that these two young ladies accomplished this together.”

Gott and Knights have helped lead the Mariners to an 11-3 overall record and a 6-1 NAC mark this season.

UMM men make major marks

Two University of Maine-Machias teammates reached some rarified territory this weekend in terms of career and season accomplishments.

Senior forward Jeremiah Johnson scored 28 points Saturday in a men’s basketball win over Fisher College to go over the 1,000-point mark in his college career with 1,021. Johnson is at least the 10th UMM player to accomplish the feat, but a 15-year gap in sports statistic recordkeeping at UMM starting in 1990 makes the exact total inexact.

Through Sunday’s games, Johnson ranked 17th nationally in NAIA Division II scoring with 20.2 points per game.

Also Saturday, Clippers teammate Charlie Calligan, a sophomore guard from Manchester, moved up into second place in the individual NAIA Division II national rankings with a .909 (30-for-33) free throw percentage. He’s also 11th in 3-point field goal percentage (.472) and 3-point field goals made per game (3.09).

Team-wise, the UMM Clippers rank 13th nationally in 3-point field goal percentage at .397 (58-for-146).