Boys Basketball: Norwood is a spark plug for Penncrest boys’ hoops

Penncrest, with an undersize but gritty lineup, is bidding to make its ninth consecutive appearance in the PIAA District 1 boys’ basketball playoffs. Odds are that the Lions will achieve that goal as they were 12-2 overall and 8-0 in the Central League entering Wednesday night’s contest against Marple Newtown. Mike Doyle’s squad was riding a 12-game winning streak entering its contest against the Tigers. It opened the season with taut nonleague losses against Phoenixville and Academy Park.

“The kids have done a nice job of buying into our offensive style,” Doyle said. “We do a lot of off-the-ball screening to get good looks at the basket.”Junior point guard Tyler Norwood is shooting 53 percent from the field while averaging 24.5 points per game. “He has an unbelievable shooting stroke. He keeps the ball on a string, and he’s a great finisher,” Doyle said. As a freshman reserve, the 5-foot-8 Norwood helped Penncrest qualify for the Class 4A state tournament. He caught Doyle’s attention while playing at Media’s Springton Lake Middle School.

“I knew he was a special kind of player,” the coach said. “A lot of schools recruited him. Luckily, we were able to keep him.”

Doyle, a former assistant at St. Joseph’s University, said Norwood reminds him in some ways of former Neumann-Goretti and Hawk standout Rashid Bey (class of 1998). Through Tuesday, Norwood, who poured in a career-high 38 points in a Dec. 17 nonleague win at Chichester, had drilled 39 three-pointers.

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