Sun Staff Contributor

NORWICH – At Jack Jones gymnasium on Friday January 20, the Purple Tornado girls varsity basketball team grabbed a STAC East Divisional win from the visiting Windsor Black Knights by a score of 52-35.

The Tornado’s Makenzie Maynard led the girls in scoring with 16 points, while teammate Meghan Komendarek added another 12 points in the victory. The strong offensive performances by the Tornado seniors helped the Norwich offense get on track early in the game as they set the tone for how the game would be played – a surge of purple tornado offense from tip-off to the final whistle.

Within the first 47 seconds of the contest, the Tornado recorded six points-all by the route of picking off Black Knight ball handlers for easy grab and go lay-ins. It wouldn’t be until more than half way through the quarter before the Black Knights recorded their first points of the game. However, the dynamic Purple Tornado offensive assault could not be contained as they would score 21 points in the opening quarter. Add in a 14 point second period, while only allowing five points to your opponents in the same quarter.

However, as the second period began to wind down, the Tornado had one last defensive stop in the final seconds that led to a two-point field goal for the hosting Purple. Within the final seconds, the crafty Tornado forward Kara Evans ripped the ball away from a Black Knight guard. Evans passed the ball to freshman point guard Halea Eaton. Eaton, as if practiced countless times before zig-zagging through the remaining Windsor defenders making her way to the basket, before launching the basketball, which then found its home inside iron as it whooshed to the bottom of the net as the half time buzzer rang.

The Tornado held a comfortable lead entering into halftime with a score of 35-15. As the game entered the third quarter, Windsor had enough of the Tornado doing what they wanted around the basket, switching to a 2-3 zone. Miscommunications and miscues by the Purple restricted their scoring output for the quarter only managing to sink three field goals in the quarter- good for seven points. Meanwhile the Black Knights had their highest scoring quarter of the game-making good on five field goals for 12 points.