Norwich Girls Basketball team is on their way! Pictured are #20 Sophomore Juliana Turner, #23 Junior Cameron VanHouten, #11 Sophomore Devin Flanagan, #5 Sophomore Olivia Schiraldi and #33 Sophomore Julia Llewelyn. Front row: #24 Senior Mackenzie Hess, #1 Senior Maddy Morris, #13 Senior Margaret Dougher and #10 Senior Emily Evans

NORWICH- Play like there is no tomorrow.

That is the mantra of the Norwich Purple Tornado girls’ varsity basketball team this postseason, and in the Tornado’s first sectional playoff game since the 2019-20 season- Norwich was dominant.

It was a wire to wire 64-30 lopsided victory on Thursday night for the number one seeded Purple Tornado that proved just too powerful for the visiting Whitney Point Golden Eagles. A key aspect of Norwich’s first round victory was first quarter offense which gave the host Tornado a 44-14 lead at the halftime intermission.

“More than anything I was happy that we had a little bit of flow (on offense) to that first five. I thought we defended well…I thought we shot the ball well” said Norwich Head Coach Josh Bennett on the importance of his team’s first-half offensive momentum.

Norwich senior Margaret Dougher delivered four of her teams’ seven opening half trifectas, as she scored 19 of her game high 21 points in the first 16 minutes of play.

“The last two or three games Margaret has shot the ball really, really well. Obviously we’re really happy about that moving forward” said Bennett on Norwich’s first half marksmanship.

A key cog in freeing up space for the shooters on the NHS team was the ability of Emily Evans and Cameron VanHouten on the interior to create space for the Tornado long-range shooters.

“The kids inside like Emily (Evans) and Cameron (VanHouten) really pull the defense in and then we move the ball in and out really, really well. That was a big difference in the first quarter. When we did do that well, we got wide open shots” added Bennett.

Norwich’s Margaret Dougher led the team in scoring with 21 points and Emily Evans was the other Tornado to record the double-digit scoring mark with 12 points. Rounding out the Norwich leading scorers was a pair of seniors Maddy Morris and MacKenzie Hess with nine points each.

Norwich (14-6) is back in action on Tuesday March 1st at 6:00pm when they host the winner of tonight’s Sectional matchup between the Seton Catholic Saints and the Waverly Wolverines.

Score by Quarters

Whitney Point: 4 10 6 10 - 30

Norwich: 26 18 13 7 - 64

Norwich: Maddy Morris 9, Emily Evans 12, Devin Flanagan 5,Margaret Dougher 21, Cameron VanHouten 6, MacKenzie Hess 9, Josey Ryan 2. 20 FG, 14-22 FT – 64

WP: Abrahamcon 2, St. John 5, Poland 2, Morgan 3, Somers 9, Austenfeld 7. 10 FG 7-13 FT- 30

3-point goals: Norwich 10 (Dougher 4, Morris 3, Flanagan, VanHouten, Hess); WP 1 (Morgan)