By RYAN WALKER
FORT WAYNE — The Norwell girls’ basketball team looked just as they have been all season long in a road victory over Bishop Dwenger Wednesday night 59-20.
The team has gotten off to hot starts, forced a bunch of turnovers, and running teams out of the gym — though, it did take them a few minutes to truly settle in on the scoreboard.
Dekota Hubble’s free throws put Norwell (14-3) up 2-0 just under the six-minute mark. Before that point, Dwenger (7-12) had turned the ball over six times in a row without a shot to start the game. Head coach Steve Wiktorowski was heard shouting to his team, “come on! Two turnovers already? Let’s go!”
Little did the Saints know that those first two turnovers were only the beginning of 15 total — in the first quarter. They looked confused and visibly frustrated from all aspects in the first half, trying to solve the Knights’ fast-paced puzzle that caused 29 total mistakes in the game.
“I think it’s not what the girls did tonight. It’s how they did it,” Norwell head coach Eric Thornton said of his team after the game. “They can do so many things well. They really played with toughness, and it’s nice to see us go for loose balls and rebounds. It’s a fun team to watch when they do that.”
Two timeouts later and the Knights looked up to a 24-2 lead at the end of the period. Seven different Knights scored those first 24 points, and Thornton added he was pleased to see the unselfishness of his team.
The team held Dwenger to single digits in every quarter for the rest of the game and only nine points in the second half alone.
Thornton has made a point of emphasis to rebound the basketball since the loss to Carroll last Tuesday. Despite losing the rebounding battle by four (mostly due to end-of-game substitutions), he thinks they’ve done a much better job at that.
“Our focus to get better has been rebounding,” he said. “I thought tonight we really went up and grabbed it. Two hands with authority, and we could get out and run.”
At the end of this month, his team will have to be ready with the first game of the sectional looming.
Last year, Norwell had five losses in a season where they tied for the Northeast 8 Conference title at a record of 6-1. Through all of that, they lost in disappointing fashion to Bellmont, who lost by 33 to the Knights not even a month prior.
On Saturday, Norwell will get its first chance at revenge against the Braves (14-2) while also starting to wrap up the season with four games remaining.
The challenge is to use those four games to not allow a repeat of last year’s tournament.
“We’re focused on right now,” Thornton said about getting his team focused. “But, there’s times where we do talk about it (the tournament), and we remind them that it’s good to talk about our goals and what we’re working for and why we need to get better at this. This is what we’ll see in the tournament. While we don’t talk about specific teams down the road, we keep that next game right in front of us. We do talk about the overall big picture, where we need to improve.”
The game is set to tip off at 7:30 Saturday, Jan. 14.
Makenzie Fuess and Kennedy Fuelling topped game-high scorers with 18 points, and four threes a piece. Hubble added eight points and a team-high seven rebounds.
Lilly Norris tallied five steals.
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NORWELL 59,
BISHOP DWENGER 20
At Dwenger High School
NORWELL (14-3): Kennedy Fuelling 7-18 0-0 18, Makenzie Fuess 7-13 0-0 18, Dekota Hubble 3-6 2-4 8, Annabell Johnson 2-6 1-1 6, Vanessa Rosswurm 1-4 1-4 4, Ryland Graft 0-2 2-2 2, Lilly Norris 1-5 0-0 3, Mady Sonnigsen 0-0 0-0 0, Haley Green 0-1 0-0 0, Ali Riley 0-0 0-0 0, Jada Dale 0-0 0-0 0, Ashley Waldman 0-0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 21-55 6-11 59.
DWENGER (7-12): Vanessa Cook 3-4 0-0 6, Maggie Pieper 0-2 3-4 3, Mary O’Brien 1-3 0-0 2, Giselle Eke 2-11 1-2 5, Anna Ponder 0-1 0-0 0, Kassidy Court 0-1 0-0 0, Grace Barfield 0-0 0-0 0, Taylor Aselage 0-2 0-0 0, Samantha Gadomski 0-2 0-0 0. TOTALS: 8-33 4-6 20.
Norwell 24 22 5 8 –– 59
Dwenger 2 9 4 5 –– 20
Three-point FG: Norwell 11-23 (Fuess 4-6, Fuelling 4-9, L.Norris 1-4, Johnson 1-2, Rosswurm 1-1, Graft 0-1), Dwenger 0-3 (Gadomski 0-2, Court 0-1). Rebounds: Norwell 24 (Hubble 7, Johnson 5, Rosswurm 3, Fuelling 1, Graft 1, Green 1, Fuess 1, Riley 1), Dwenger 28 (Eke 8, Aselage 3, O’Brien 3, Wharton 2, Barfield 1, Gadomski 1, Cook 1). Turnovers: Norwell 14, Dwenger 29. Fouls: Norwell 6, Dwenger 9. Fouled Out: None. Technicals: None.
