Evening Sun Report

Boys’ Basketball

Norwich 52, Windsor 33

NORWICH – A sluggish start preceded a prototypical Norwich performance to end the first half Wednesday in the Tornado’s 19-point sectional playoff victory.

Norwich (15-4), winners of 10 out of 11 games, finished the final 12 1/2 minutes of the first half on a 35-7 run to take the Black Knights completely out of the game. The victory sets up a third encounter with Chenango Valley on Saturday at home.

“Windsor is a much better team than people think, and they’ve beaten some teams this year,” said Norwich coach Tom Collier. “Their big guys hurt us early, but we were able to put the press on and get some turnovers.”

Mike Oralls’ two free throws started a 14-2 spurt to finish out the first quarter. Zan Stewart canned a three following a Windsor turnover, and the quarter ended with Oralls’ trifecta making it 16-8.

“Zan was the difference coming off the bench for us,” Collier said.  ‘He hit that early three, and that kind of opened the flood gates.”

Windsor offered little resistance to the Norwich offense in the second half as the momentum picked up steam. A 20-5 period was highlighed by back-to-back treys by Stewart two buckets from Kyle Edwards, and Matt Burke’s steal and layup with under 10 seconds to play raising the halftime lead to 36-13.