Tornado sweeps through Saints to extend winning streak to 8

NORWICH – The Lady Purple Tornado used their gritty, intense full-court press to grind out a 64-52 win over the Seton Catholic Saints in a basketball Monday premier matchup.

The victory gave Norwich their third win of the year against the Saints to make it a clean sweep of the season series of contests between the two teams.

The Purple Tornado’s full-court pressure created their offense for most of the game but when put into a half-court situation during the contest, the home team rarely came away with an empty possession as they moved the ball to find the open player.

“Seton has a way of turning games with us into real grind-it-out type games,” said Norwich head coach Josh Bennett. “I thought we were a little stagnate offensively at times but we grinded out turnovers on defense and turned them into offense.”

The Saints matched the Norwich tempo at times throughout the four quarters of play, breaking the pressure down and finishing at the rim.

The Tornado trailed 10-7 early in the first quarter but the next two possessions down the floor ended with a 3-point bucket, the first made by Triniti Myers from the right corner that was followed by Halea Eaton’s long ball from the wing on the same side.

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By the end of the first quarter, Norwich took a five point lead and never lost the advantage again.

The Saints’ Julia Hauer paced her team through the first half, scoring 13 of her game-high 18 points but was faced with foul trouble for the second half as she went into the halftime break with three.

Norwich – who knocked down eight 3-pointers in the game as a team – hit two from beyond the arc in second quarter. After hitting the deep ball early in the stanza, the Tornado turned to the inside game of Saige Benedict as well as the dribble penetration of Taylor Hansen and Nicole Jeffrey.

The outside-inside offensive attack allowed Norwich to take a 12 point lead into the locker room.

However, the Saints couldn’t be counted out of the game just yet. While the two teams nearly matched point for point, it was in the early minutes of the fourth quarter where Seton started to threaten the Tornado lead.

Starting the final eight minutes with a deficit of 13 points, Hauer returned to the game – with four fouls – and shifted the momentum into the visiting team’s favor.

Hauer opened the early fourth quarter run by the Saints with a reverse layup on the baseline. Seton then went on a 6-0 run to cut the lead down to seven points.