Keith Lanfear Photo
BINGHAMTON – After 13 long years, the Norwich Purple Tornado girls basketball team is back on top of Section IV again. The Lady Tornado defeated the Owego Indians 66-42 in the championship games Saturday evening, using a 28-point second quarter scoring rout to take down the top-seeded Indians.
During that stanza, seven different Tornado players scored points to contribute to the commanding take-over after trailing at the end of first quarter by two.
The win gave Norwich (21-1) their third Section IV title in the program’s history, the last coming during the 2005-2006 season.
Owego went on a 9-1 run to start the game, five of their points coming at the free-throw line. The Indians’ stand-out Kaci Donovan, who was coming off a 47-point performance in their win over Waverly, made four of those five.
Evee Coleman, missing from the first meeting between the two teams due to a school band trip to Orlando, scored two buckets in transition on long passes from teammate Donovan to aid in the early lead for Owego.
However, Norwich’s Saige Benedict put the defensive clamps on Coleman for the rest of the quarter and the Tornado worked their way back into the game.
The lone point for Norwich came from Triniti Myers at the free throw line as the No. 2 team displayed their nerves early in the contest. But in a matter of a few minutes with a few defensive stops, Norwich quickly shook away the jitters and began to find their offense.
Halea Eaton made the next two foul shots for Norwich and Sydney Coggins drained a 3-pointer from the left-side corner to pull the Tornado within three.
Head coach Josh Bennett quickly called a timeout following the Coggins make and pulled his girls in to say “We’re fine. Take a deep breath. They will wear down. No matter what happens, keep running, keep pushing the pace, keep the energy up and make [Owego] go at this pace for 32 minutes with us and they will tire. No one can run as long as we can.”
After the quick break in action and words from their coach, Norwich did just that.
Owego’s Anna Felice finished a penetrating attack to put her team back up by five but Eaton brought it back to three with a floater on the next Norwich possession. Teammate Taylor Hansen closed out the first quarter scoring at the foul line with one of her two attempts going through the net to make the score 11-9 in favor of Owego.
The Purple Tornado’s first lead of the game came just nine seconds into the second with Eaton knocking down a long 3 from the top of the key. Norwich’s next trip up the floor ended with a Myers 3-point field goal to put the team up by four.
Felice didn’t let the Indians go away that easy, finishing on back-to-back possessions at the rim and tying the score at 15-15.
The tie score didn’t stand for long.
Norwich’s Abby Flynn took a pass from Coggins on a cut to the hoop and scored, Emily Evans went 2-for-2 at her trip to the free throw line and Benedict scored seven points on a floater through the paint, a shot-fake, turn around 8-footer and a corner shot just outside the 3-point arc.
Briefly interrupting the Tornado run was the Indians’ Cam Kopalek with two made free throws on the possession in between Benedict’s turn around and money ball. The Norwich senior’s 3 extended the score to 26-17.
The only other Owego points scored prior to the end of the first half were by Coleman, once again receiving the dish from Donovan.
Norwich ended the quarter with yet another run, scoring the last 11 points that started with Nicole Jeffrey finding Flynn on the high-low post pass. Then after Flynn drove to the hoop and finished, Coggins sunk her second 3-pointer, Hansen banked in a 15-foot floater and Flynn made two free throws to bring the first half tally to a rest at 37-19.
Coleman and Felice combined to score eight of the first 10 points scored to open the second half, chipping away at the lead and bringing the Indians within 11 points.
