By Gifford Wolcott

Contributing Writer

WAVERLY – The Purple Tornado of Norwich blew into town, a pre-game power outage dimmed the lights and delayed the game, then the Purple Tornado turned out the lights permanently on the Wolverines of Waverly in a thrilling come-from-behind 20-12 victory Friday night.

It was the second straight week Norwich found itself on the short end of the score heading into the fourth quarter before rallying.

Tornado head coach John Pluta had high praise for his squad. “That’s two weeks in a row we’ve come from behind,” he said. “We said during halftime that we’ve got to win that second half, we’ve got to keep playing, we’re having fun out here. We’ve just got to keep getting after them.”

With just over four minutes to play in the game and on fourth-and-six from the Wolverines’ 43-yard line, Tornado signal-caller Tim Clark found Andrew Austin running free behind Waverly defense. Austin hauled in the pass at the Waverly three-yard line. Norwich then called on Mike Moon to cover the final three yards. The Tornado’s attempt at a two-point conversion was turned back by Waverly keeping the game deadlocked at 12-12.