NORWICH – Norwich Tech’s Brandon Mayersohn had one eye on the clock and the other on the 3-point line as he slowly dribbled the ball past half court during the final seconds of the third quarter. His heart was in another place when he let fly a 30-footer that swished through the net as the buzzer sounded.
Mayersohn looked up and pointed into the rafters. The basket was for his ailing great-grandmother, Cindy.
"I wanted to shoot it. That was for her," Mayersohn said.
Mayersohn’s buzzer-beater was just one of the many second half highlights for Norwich Tech, which captured its first win of the season with a 52-41 victory over Vinal Tech-Middletown on Tuesday night in Norwich.
"It feels great," said Mayersohn, a junior guard who finished with a team-high 18 points. "We’re a young team so we just have to keep grinding and pushing."
Evender Dorcin scored 12 points, while freshman Giovani Yeung chipped in 11 points for the Warriors (1-3).
"We’re a work in progress," Norwich Tech coach Jeff Brown said. "But I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys."
Vinal Tech sophomore Xavier Hull scored 10 of his game-high 19 points in the first half to lift the Hawks to a 17-13 halftime lead.
But the Warriors pressure defense rattled the Hawks in the second half. Vinal (0-4) committed 24 turnovers over the final two quarters. The Hawks also made just 6 of 19 free throws.
"I told the kids, you can’t win a game like that," Vinal Tech coach Gary Marineau said. "We had too many turnovers. But give Norwich Tech credit. We’re going to get better. I told the kids we can hang our heads or go and get better for tomorrow."
The Warriors took the lead for good midway through the third quarter when Dorcin broke a 21-21 tie with a steal and layup. Dorcin also converted a low post hoop off a nice feed from Merdoche Gustave.
After Hull sliced through the lane for a layup, Mayersohn buried a corner trey for a 28-23 advantage.
"At halftime, I just encouraged the kids to keep playing hard," said Brown, the former Ledyard coach now in his seventh season at Norwich. "If we keep playing hard, things will happen. Our shots really didn’t fall in the first half. We were getting shots. We just had to keep the confidence up."
And no one showed more confidence than Mayersohn, whose third quarter buzzer-beater just past half court gave the Warriors a 35-24 advantage.
"That’s was a big shot," Brown said. "He’s a streaky shooter and when he gets confidence he gets going. We told him … let it fly."