Big 2nd quarter fuels Tornadoes

After losing six straight games, Columbian needed a win Thursday and that's exactly what it got. After a slow start with a 14-6 lead over visiting Norwalk, the Tornadoes erupted for a 22-4 second period en route to a 61-22 SBC Lake rout.TC (4-7, 1-3 SBC Lake) turned up its pressure defense after the opening frame as Norwalk (0-10, 0-4) committed 17 turnovers to just one for the Tornadoes.TC started the second quarter on a 13-0 run and never looked back."We just took care of business tonight," TC coach Jac Alexander said. "That was our M.O. all week: we needed to take care of business with us sitting down in a stance on defense, grabbing every rebound – the stuff we haven't been doing in our other games so far. It's simple, if you do the things you're supposed to do and you play hard, don't gamble and do stupid stuff, you'll be fine. "We didn't shoot it great, but if you play the game the right way, shots then start falling. Then you get some swag, you get some offensive rebounds and make the right plays."Norwalk defended well in the first quarter and had a bunch of open looks on the offensive end, but couldn't connect.Freshman Kyle Hepp got the start and he hit consecutive 3-pointers in the opening quarter to get the Tornadoes going. Logan Gooding got things going in the 13-0 run to begin the second stanza with five straight points before Blake Miller made a layup, DaShawn Russell chipped in three consecutive points and then Nolan Miller split his free throws as TC led 27-6.The Tornadoes pushed that advantage to 36-10 at the half as it ended the half with a quick 7-0 burst behind a Gooding triple, a Russell layup and a Parker Nye bucket."This is how its gone for us pretty much the whole season to this point where we compete for a quarter and things just get away from us no matter how many timeouts I call," Truckers coach Adam Kreischer said. "I think I called three timeouts in that run in the second quarter to keep it as close as I could, but right now it really comes down we can't really talk about skill deficits we have until we get stronger. "Tiffin is like many teams we play. It's not like they're super strong, but they're stronger than we are, so they bump us off the ball, they knock us off our path to set screens and they move us even when we're boxing them out. We have young guys, but until we fall in love with the weight room and get stronger, it doesn't matter how skilled we are."TC continued the stellar play on both ends in the third and forced a running clock in the fourth quarter as the Tornadoes emptied the bench to finish things out.Logan Gooding led all players with 16 points for TC, while Blake Miller chipped in 13 and freshman Kyle Hepp had eight points in his first start.Xavier Saunders paced the Truckers with 11 points.The win snapped a six-game skid for the Tornadoes as TC has been in every single one of those games, but hasn't been able to get a positive result. "We took care of business and use it as a stepping stone and then take it into Saturday and then keep building from this every day," Alexander said. Columbian 61, Norwalk 22Norwalk (0-10, 0-4 SBC Lake): Kingston Gonzales 2-2-5; Xavier Saunders 4-1-11; Kian Kreischer 0-0-0; Nolan Jones 1-0-2; Brandon Carty 0-0-0; Caiden Schmidt 1-0-2; Josh King 0-0-0. Totals: 8-3-22.Columbian (4-7, 1-3): Nolan Miller 3-0-7; Blake Miller 5-1-13; Jax Diamantopoulos 1-0-2; Logan Gooding 6-1-16; DaShawn Russell 2-2-6; DaZarius Russell 0-0-0; Blake Tucker 2-0-4; Parker Nye 2-0-4; Kyle Hepp 3-0-8. Totals: 24-5-61.Norwalk&emsp;&emsp;6&emsp;&emsp;4&emsp;&emsp;9&emsp;&emsp;3&emsp;&emsp;– 22Columbian&emsp;&emsp;14&emsp;&emsp;22&emsp;&emsp;19&emsp;&emsp;6&emsp;&emsp;– 613-point goals: Norwalk 3 (Saunders 2, Gonzales); Columbian Gooding 3, B. Miller 2, Hepp 2, N. Miller)Foul shots: Norwalk 3-8; Columbian 5-10Turnovers: Norwalk 17, Columbian 1