POUGHKEEPSIE – You cannot argue with success – or results. By those two measures, Norwich is playing the Goliath of all Goliaths when it faces Peekskill tonight at 8 p.m. at Vassar College in the Class A state playoffs.
Red Devils head coach Lou Panzanaro is a legend in Section I with over 500 career wins. He has led a dozen and a half Peekskill teams to Section I titles – including the last five.
Among the standouts over the years include NBA players Elton Brand of Philadelphia, and 2002 Peekskill graduate, Hilton Armstrong. Armstrong starred for Peekskill when it defeated Norwich in lopsided fashion.
“Peekskill is just a factory that keeps producing great basketball players,” said Norwich coach Mark Abbott, who is no stranger to postseason play or the state playoffs. It’s the fourth state trip for NHS under Abbott’s tutelage including back-to-back Class B state titles in 1993 and 1994. “They are Peekskill and they present a tremendous challenge, but at the same time it is also a tremendous opportunity for us.”
The Red Devils will likely send one or two players on to division one NCAA basketball this coming year or the next – they usually do. Leading a corps of athletic, talented athletes is junior mainstay point guard, Daquan Brickhouse. Brickhouse suffered a bad ankle sprain in practice just over two weeks ago, but he hasn’t missed a beat leading his team to a 10-point Section I championship victory over Lakeland last weekend. Brickhouse’s main cohort is Ralph Watts, a senior swingman who can hit the outside shot or slash to the bucket.
“When you talk personnel, those two (Watts and Brickhouse) are the ones that pop up first in conversation,” Abbott said. “Brickhouse is very talented with the ball. He’s quick and unselfish. Our biggest challenge is to keep him out of the paint. Watts, we need to stay attached to him. We can’t lose sight of him and have to be right in his shorts.”
The supporting cast for Peekskill is made up of athletic role players who buy into the team philosophy of unselfishness and hard-nosed defense. “They’re a solid team, no question, but anything can happen on a given day,” Abbott said. “Number one, we have to take care of the ball. And number two, we have to get high-percentage shots.”
Norwich senior Vaughn Labor scored a game-high 20 points in a 51-46 victory over Elmira Southside for the Section IV title. Labor was the third different leading scorer for the Tornado (20-3) in three sectional title wins. Richie Bonney came off the bench to pace NHS in a road win at Elmira Free Academy, and regular season scoring leader, Corey Dietrich, had the top point total in a first-round triumph over Owego. In those three wins, Norwich allowed just 41 points a game and won by nearly 19 points a game. All of that will put to the test by a Red Devils club that has scored at least 60 points in every game this season, and proved its superiority over Section IV a year ago with a crushing 57-point victory over Oneonta.
“Ever since we knew we were playing Peekskill, we talked (to the team) about the fact we have played teams in the AAU season similar to Peekskill,” Abbott. “Sometimes we competed well and sometimes we were overwhelmed. One thing for sure, this will not be a new experience for our players. We need to be mentally tough and go out and play with confidence.”