By RICK SPRUNGER
WOODBURN — It’s a good thing that Norwell scored the first 11 points of the game Tuesday night.
Those 11 points represented the Knights’ margin of victory in a sluggish 62-51 win at Woodlan.
“I’m happy for the win,” said Norwell coach Eric Thornton, choosing his words carefully after it was over, “but I’m disappointed with our inability to do what we wanted and to play with physicality against (Alyssa) Anderson.”
Anderson is a 5’-11” junior forward who scored 33 points on 15-for-18 shooting from the field, grabbed 12 rebounds, and pretty much personally brought Woodlan back from the dead.
She missed the first shot she took but then hit 15 in a row, all of them from right around the basket.
“We can’t be letting her get that stuff at the rim,” continued Thornton. “We needed to front her; we needed to have a body on her at all times; we needed to defend her before she got the ball, not after. And we just didn’t.”
Norwell was never actually in any danger of losing the game, thanks to its early breakout.
But things got mighty uncomfortable down the stretch after Woodlan chopped what had been an 18-point deficit all the way down to six and got the ball back.
Norwell ran up that early 11-0 advantage that turned out to be money in the bank.
Vanessa Rosswurm scored 15 of her team-high 27 points in the first quarter, including seven of her team’s first 11.
She hit the first six shots she took, three of them three-pointers, as Norwell surged to a 22-9 lead at the first stop.
The lead peaked at 33-15 on Rosswurm’s five-footer in the lane with just over five minutes remaining in the first half, and it swelled to 17 again at 42-25 on Ashley Waldman’s drive through the lane and Rosswurm’s pull-up 10-footer wrapped around a Woodlan turnover in the first 50 seconds of the third quarter.
But after that, Woodlan started chipping away.
“You could sense it starting to get away from us in the second quarter already,” observed Thornton. “We were stuck on 38 for what seemed like forever.”
The last 3:09 of the first half, to be exact, during which time Norwell missed its last six shots of the second quarter.
Right in the middle of the Woodlan rally was Anderson, who scored 12 points in the second quarter and 10 more in the third as the Warriors cut their deficit down to 10 at 51-41 at the third quarter break and then down to 51-44 when Reagan Wiedenhoefer opened the fourth period with a three-pointer.
When Anderson converted a three-point play underneath with 3:38 to play, the Norwell lead was down to a skinny 55-49.
And Woodlan got the ball right back when a wild Norwell pass sailed out of bounds behind an intended receiver who had broken in the opposite direction.
But Rosswurm stepped in front of a Warrior pass, and Macie Saalfrank delivered the kill shot with a three-pointer from the right wing that made it 58-49 with 2:53 remaining.
“That was a huge shot,” praised her coach. “She shot that ball with a lot of confidence.”
The shot also gave her a career-high 20 points on 8-for-16 shooting and a couple of free throws.
After hitting 15 of its first 24 shots, Norwell managed to connect on just nine of its last 30 and finished 24-for-54 for a .444 shooting percentage compared to Woodlan’s 21-for-52 for .404.
The Knights also forced 21 Woodlan turnovers while committing just 10 themselves.
Norwell won the junior varsity contest, 64-28.
Mia Kurtz scored 21 points and Eden Nash 14 to lead the Knights.
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NORWELL 62, WOODLAN 51
NORWELL (8-4): Addie Norris 1-6 0-0 2, Ashley Waldman 2-6 0-0 5, Alivia Green 1-1 0-0 2, Macie Saalfrank 8-16 2-2 20, Vanessa Rosswurm 10-17 4-6 27, Jada Dale 2-6 0-0 5, Isabella Swineford 0-1 1-2 1, Ryland Graft 0-1 0-0 0, Mekynzi Beck 0-0 0-0 0, Haley Williamson 0-0 0-0 0. TOTAL: 24-54 7-10 62.
WOODLAN (5-5): Reagan Wiedenhoefer 0-7 2-3 2, Alyssa Anderson 15-18 3-3 33, Brooke Kneubuhler 5-16 0-0 13, Emma McDaniel 0-1 0-0 0, McKenna Goble 1-8 0-0 3, Makenna Smith 0-1 0-0 0, Layla Hodson 0-1 0-0 0. TOTAL: 21-52 5-6 51.
Norwell 22 16 13 11 -62
Woodlan 9 16 16 10 -51
Three-point shooting: Norwell 7-19 (Norris 0-1, Waldman 1-4, Saalfrank 2-7, Rosswurm 3-5, Dale 1-2), Woodlan 4-25 (Wiedenhoefer 0-4, Kneubuhler 3-11, McDaniel 0-1, Goble 1-7, Smith 0-1, Hodson 0-1). Rebounds: Norwell 29 (Rosswurm 5), Woodlan 33 (Anderson 12, Smith 6). Turnovers: Norwell 10, Woodlan 21. Personal fouls: Norwell 12, Woodlan 15. Fouled Out: Smith. Technical fouls: None.
Junior Varsity: Norwell 64, Woodlan 28.
