NORWALK — Artistry was not the word of the evening when the Westhill High School and Norwalk High School boys basketball teams tussled Monday night at the Bears’ Tom Scarso gym.
Choppy, physical and relentless were perhaps the better words to describe Norwalk’s 51-44 home triumph over Westhill. It was the Bears’ first FCIAC victory of the season.
“We didn’t have a good first half. I think we scored 10 points in the opening 13 1/2 minutes,” said Norwalk coach Matt Whelan. “We had no good looks at the basket. We were sloppy.”
SECOND HALF CHANGE FOR NORWALK
Norwalk trailed 16-14 at halftime. The Bears were receptive to change.
Norwalk (2-4, 1-2 FCIAC) decided to press Westhill’s guards. The result were transition opportunities.
The pressure combined with Westhill’s leading scorer Eli Stockman going to the bench after tweaking his knee became an 8-0 Norwalk surge and a 24-21 NHS edge midway through the third quarter.
Norwalk spent much of the first half settling for jumpers over a packed-in Westhill zone.
The second half the Bears spread out in the halfcourt set. They had senior Zyaire Sellers, freshman Mysonne Pollard and junior Jamal Boyd take turns in isolation driving to the basket.
Even when Norwalk missed, the trio drew fouls. NHS finished the night 11 of 24 on free throws including 7 of 18 in the second half.
The parade of fouls saw Westhill’s Jack Schlachtenhaufen foul out with 3:57 to play. Cameron Blake fouled out with 2:52 to go.
Sellers had nine of his 13 points in the second half while the lefty Pollard had 10 of his 12 after intermission.
“In the long term, we need to be able to move better without the ball,” NHS’ Whalen said. “But Pollard and Sellers are good athletes who can get to the basket.”
Norwalk led 39-31 with 4:40 left on Dylan Polka’s 3-pointer. The cushion proved too much for Westhill.
BACK TO DRAWING BOARD FOR WESTHILL
Westhill (3-4, 1-2 FCIAC) had no 3-pointers in the contest and were just 6 of 12 from the line.
Stockman (13 points) and tall freshman Craig Ottaviano (eight points) cashed in often on the offensive glass.
But the Vikings, who used 15 players in all, missed offensive opportunities in the first half. They never imposed their will defensively after intermission.
“We got away from our game plan. We tried to play up and down the court with Norwalk. We tried to do too much one-on-one on offense,” Westhill’s coach Howard White said. “I could tell that Eli (Stockman) wasn’t 100 percent after getting banged so we were cautious with him in the second half.”
White was still frustrated after the contest after his long talk with his young Vikings.
“Team wise there are things we have to fix,” White said. “Things are going to change. We have guys who need to produce more. There’s no time to sit back and wait for improvement in the FCIAC. We need to find kids who are producers.”
NORWALK 51, WESTHILL 44
WESTHILL 9 7 11 17—44
NORWALK 5 9 16 21—51
WESTHILL (3-4, 1-2 FCIAC)
Eli Stockman 5 3-4 13 JeySon Slade 3 0-1 6 Jack Schlachtenhaufen 3 1-2 7 Wilmer Guevara 2 0-0 4 Nick Lappas 0 0-0 0 Sergio Thermidor 2 0-0 4 AJ Laccona 0 0-0 0 Brian Martin 1 0-0 2 Anthony Scott 0 0-0 0 Nate Yaghoubian 0 0-0 0 Alex Papademetriou 0 0-0 0 Cameron Blake 0 0-0 0 Conner Rondano 0 0-0 0 Rob Smeriglio 0 0-0 0 Craig Ottaviano 3 2-5 8. Totals: 19 6-12 44.
NORWALK (2-4, 1-2 FCIAC)
Deondre Bullock 0 0-0 0 Jadyn Grant 1 3-5 5 Zyaire Sellers 4 5-8 13 Dylan Polka 2 0-0 5 Aaron Epps 1 0-0 2 Jamal Boyd 2 0-0 4 Cam Edwards 0 0-0 0 Jahmai Green 3 0-0 7 Rudmayer Roberts 1 1-2 3 Mysonne Pollard 5 2-9 12. Totals: 19 11-24 51.
3-Pointers: N—Polka, Green.
