The Norton Boys Basketball Teams both had great seasons.  Unfortunately we were not TVL champs for the third year in a row but it was still a great season.  The varsity team went 10-10 to make the playoffs for the seventh straight year.  The captains of the team were James Loring and Paul Schleicher.  The JV team had a very successful season going 13-5.  Hopefully next season the team can build off of this year and go farther in the tournament.

The varsity team started off slow going 4-6 in the first half but finished the second half of the season 6-4.  Going into the last three games Norton needed to win two of them.  They lost the first of three games to Medway who was the easier of the three games.  Norton followed it up by beating Randolph, a really good division 2 team and then they beat the 19-0 Ashland to ruin their undefeated season.  Although Norton lost their first tournament game, their last two regular season games were basically playoff games.  The tournament game against Westport was close throughout the game.  Norton was winning late in the game and it looked like they were going to pull off the upset but Westport toke the lead in the last minute and won.  Bret Murphy had a great game with 19 points.  James Loring also had a good game.  Paul Schleicher fouled out early in the fourth quarter.  If he was able to stay in the game Norton might have pulled out the win.  Westport went on to beat Rockland in their next game. 

It looks like the team will be successful next year.  There is a lot of talent coming up from the JV team and Jason Oneil and Bret Murphy both got a lot of minutes on varsity as juniors this year and made the most of them.  Keenan Coffey, Andrew Veglas, and Paul Caramanica swung but they did not get in many varsity games.  Jason did a great job taking over as the starting point guard when Levi hurt his ankle at the beginning of the season and provided solid minutes off the bench once Levi returned.  Bret started all season and was one of the leagues best three point shooters and he had six in the playoff game.  The teams has a lot of talented players to build off of next year as the team looks to make the playoffs for the 8th straight year.

The seniors were all happy to make the playoff their last year despite losing a close game in the first round.  The players all put in a lot of hard work and effort at practice everyday as they were able to achieve their goal of making the playoffs for the 7th straight year.  I enjoyed being a part of the team and it will not be the same without all of the seniors next year.