Boys’ Basketball

Johnson City 60, Norwich 50

JOHNSON CITY – Johnson City’s guards made Norwich pay in the first time, this time it was the Wildcats’ forwards who did the bulk of the damage in Friday’s matchup.

Chris Massar and Davon Newborn combined for 33 points led by Massar’s 17, a far cry from the 16 points the two scored in the first matchup – and overtime win over the Purple Tornado.

In the first game it was Jay Choi and Matt Stotts who confounded the Purple scoring 37 total points as compared to just 11 this time around. “We didn’t play well and I thought we looked flat,” said Norwich coach Mark Abbott. “You have to give Johnson City a lot of credit. They played with a lot of emotion on their senior night.”

Johnson City made a defensive switch in the second half from man-to-man to zone, and while the Norwich output wasn’t seriously reduced, it changed the tempo of the game. The Warriors put up 37 second-half points and pulled away in the fourth outscoring Norwich 19-8.

“I just couldn’t find anything to get us going in the second half,” Abbott said. “I was searching for combination and nothing seemed to work. It was a great move by their coach to switch to zone. We couldn’t get the ball into the basket after they made that switch.”

Robert Martin led Norwich (9-8) with 19 points and Nate Foote added 16.