NORWICH - A combined effort by local and regional emergency preparedness officials helped the 2017 Gus Macker Basketball Tournament run safely.

More than 7,000 spectators watched 330 teams play in the 22nd annual double-elimination competition, sponsored by the Norwich Family YMCA.

"The Gus Macker Tournament was a great test of our incident management capabilities,” said Norwich Emergency Manager A. Wesley Jones, who served as the event’s incident commander. “Our joint City/County Emergency Operations Center was staffed for two days to monitor the event and coordinate response resources such as law enforcement and EMS.”