NORWICH – Norwich will host a pair of sectional basketball games tonight with the aim of packing it up and traveling together to Binghamton on Friday for the right to play for a Section IV championship.
Norwich’s girls look for their second straight sectional finals appearance when they open action at 6 p.m. at Jack Jones Gymnasium against Susquehanna Valley. It will be a third meeting this season between the Tornado and the Sabers with each team holding wins on the other club’s home floor.
Meanwhile, another chapter will be written in the storied NHS-Oneonta rivalry with the boys competing in the nightcap. Game time is approximately 7:45 p.m..
“Our kids understand the history of the rivalry, and it should be a great atmosphere,” said Norwich coach Tom Collier, a 1976 Norwich graduate.
Led my Dennis Oralls’ season-high 28-point night and Seth Thomsen’s 18-point game, Norwich led from the first quarter forward, and pulled away in the fourth for a 61-44 victory over the ‘Jackets.
“That game doesn’t mean anything now,” Collier said. “They just beat the number 10 team in the state (Waverly), who is a really good team. Oneonta is playing very well right now.”
Bryce Wooden and Mike Calkins, both interior players, lead the Oneonta offense. Wooden is a bruising power forward, while Calkins is a smooth 6-foot-4 lefty. The two combine to average over 30 points a game this season, although Norwich limited them to 22 total points.
“Those two can really hurt us on the inside,” Collier said. “They’re both strong and talented. We’ll need to stop points in the paint, and we’ll need to rebound well defensively.
“They’re really a forward-laden team that likes to control tempo, and we’re guard-laden and want to push the tempo. It could come down to whichever team imposes its style on the other.”
For Josh Bennett and his Tornado girls, the loss to Susquehanna Valley is perhaps the one league game it would like to have back. For one, the Sabers are the only team this season to score at least 50 points on NHS, and SV is also the only team to defeat Norwich on its home court this season.
Norwich walloped Sus Valley by 19 points in mid-December only to see the tables turned in a 56-43 loss on January 20. SV’s Abigail Hogan had just three points in the loss, but came through with a game-high 20 points in the victory. Lindsay Haskell added 14 points in the victory as Sabers literally doubled their points output.
Norwich struggled on offense against the Sus Valley zone turning the ball over 22 times. SV also went to the foul line 37 times, much due to offensive peneration and offensive rebounding.
“We turned it over a ton,” said Norwich third-year girls coach, Josh Bennett. “They played zone against us, and they’re a very athletic team. They have five really good athletes who start. They get into passing lanes and they are active.”
Of late, Norwich has seen almost exclusively zone with Owego, Oneonta, Unadilla Valley, and Dryden all eschewing man-to-man defense. In those four games, Norwich is averaging better than four three-pointers a game, and had five trifectas from guard Jennifer Borfitz in last Saturday’s sectional playoff win over Dryden.
Still, Bennett expects the contest to be decided on the defensive end. “What we need to do well is rebound defensively,” he said. “They picked up a lot of loose-ball rebounds, and that is a big reason why we fouled them so much. We got ourselves in bad positions, and ended up having to foul to avoid the layups. Their strengths are getting into the lane with penetration. We have to force them to shoot jump shots, and on offense, we need to take care of the ball.”
Borfitz and senior Bryn Loomis have led the Tornado offense this season. Loomis is among the area’s top scorers at over 14 points a game, while Borfitz has kicked up her offense the past five contests scoring at least 12 points in four.
Winners of tonight’s games will play this Friday 6 and 7:45 p.m. at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena for the Class B title.