NORWICH – Lady Tornado junior Sydney Coggins knocked down a 3-pointer on Norwich’s first possession of the contest and teammate Margaret Dougher followed up with one of her own to give the home team a 6-0 lead in the first 30 seconds of the game against Seton Catholic on Tuesday.
The quick advantage was one that Norwich held onto for the remainder of the contest as they went on to top the Saints 65-55.
The Purple Tornado used their hard-nosed pressuring defense to cause many turnovers for the Saints early but Seton pushed back as Norwich had several turnovers throughout the contest that the visitors capitalized on.
After the first quarter, Norwich held a 23-19 lead and held the same four point margin as the two teams went into the locker room.
In the third, the Lady Tornado had a hard time taking care of the ball and the Saints took advantage to pull within two points half way through the quarter.
However, Norwich quickly gathered themselves as Coggins drained her third 3-point field goal of the game to spark the Tornado’s 9-0 in 45 seconds of play.
For the rest of the contest, Norwich kept no less than a nine-point cushion to capture the Southern Tier Athletic Conference win.
Abby Flynn led the Tornado in the balanced scoring column with 19 points, despite facing foul trouble in the second and not seeing the floor throughout the third quarter. In her fourth quarter return, Flynn paced the home team with eight points before fouling out late in the stanza.
Dougher finished with 13 while Coggins had 12 and Emily Evans tallied 10 to give Norwich four scorers in double figures.
Seton’s Reese Vaughn led all scorers with 21 points.
Norwich, who slid three spots in the New York State Class B rankings to 13, is now 5-2 on the season. The Lady Tornado are scheduled to travel to Chenango Forks on Friday for a 7:15 p.m. game time.