HAZELWOOD: Crowd support showed how far Norwalk has come

Mar. 7—NORWALK — Like she had done so many times before, Brooklyn Davis had deflected an opponent's pass out of bounds.

But this particular time, when the Norwalk girls basketball senior swatted the ball, the crowd was so loud it was difficult to think, yet alone hear.

So when Davis stopped herself from going out of bounds and looked up, only then she realized the basketball had landed right in the hands of her head coach, Brock Manlet.

Just 74 seconds into the game, face-to-face, the two briefly broke character and both smiled before quickly returning to the action.

Of all the moments I observed in the Division II regional championship game between Norwalk and Bryan on March 3 in Mansfield, that is the one I keep returning to.

The short exchange represented so much about the season — and how far the Norwalk program has come. Despite a record number of wins in the regular season, the Truckers had found themselves in a position few could have envisioned just two weeks prior.

And it was a lot of fun.

So much fun, in fact, that even Manlet had let his guard down. The coach is known for being wound tight before games. He coaches with an intense style. But even he took a moment to take it all in as a capacity crowd was watching his team play in a round with just eight teams left in the state.

"It's hard not to," Manlet said. "You work so hard to get to this point. To see a gym filled ... we finally got here to a regional six years ago, but to reach a championship game and to see this crowd was incredible.

"I'm proud of our community for showing up to support these girls."

Manlet wasn't the only one who looked on with amazement.

There were so many subplots to reflect on this winter. The obvious being the Truckers had to move on from a soul-crushing loss in the regular season finale vs. Bellevue that cost them their first-ever league championship.

As the top seed in the district, the Truckers' path had the No. 3 and 4 seeds — league champions Mansfield Senior and Shelby — in their half of the bracket. Norwalk of course trailed by 12 points with six-plus minutes left against the Tygers on the verge of a 'one-and-done' tournament just nine days after that Bellevue loss.

Just 13 days later, the Truckers trailed Bryan by five points midway through the fourth quarter of the "go-to-state" game.

But as I looked around Pete Henry Gymnasium in Mansfield just before tip-off last week, that wasn't what stood out the most.

As mentioned, this was for a spot in the state semifinals in Dayton. Understood. But to think a Norwalk girls basketball game would ever draw a crowd like that was beyond fantasy not all that long ago.

From 1975-2015, the program had just three winning seasons, and just four times did the Truckers win a sectional championship. In 19 of those 41 seasons, the Truckers won five games or less.

Point being, for quite some time it had been a struggle for many reasons.

In fact, in the late 1990s, when Norwalk made long away trips to former Northern Ohio League venues such as Bucyrus, Galion, Shelby and Upper Sandusky — their student section consisted of one kid. Sometimes, it was maybe two.

How do I know that? Because I was the one kid. Often I was able to find another friend to go, but not always.

And a small part of me wasn't lost on the fact that we just hit the 50-year anniversary last June of Title IX. The famous federal civil rights law has been credited with changing the access to educational and athletic opportunities for women.

So yes, walking in that gym more than 30 minutes before tip-off and seeing Norwalk supporters struggling to find a seat at a girls basketball game is still something I'm trying to process.

But don't just take my word for it.

In a video that circulated of the team returning from their first-ever regional win — a 40-30 victory over Toledo Rogers on Feb. 28 — they were greeted by a near full parking lot after 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night.

In the video, Manlet can be seen on the bus looking down, saying nothing.

"I don't know if I said two words that night because it's almost like living a dream," he said. "It's crazy to be where we are right now. You can just feel the energy when you walk into a gym. We fed off of that as coaches, so I can only imagine how our girls felt.

"We were one win from getting to state, which is crazy to think about — especially when you think about the history of girls basketball at Norwalk. Just before the start of the game during introductions was a special moment. The support of the community and surrounding towns is beyond belief. It gives me goosebumps just talking about it."

And while this probably doesn't need to be stated, watching what these girls accomplished in just a couple weeks was refreshing. At a time when their school really needed it, the Truckers rallied an entire community to all show up in support.

Perhaps most refreshing, though, was in my conversations with Davis and sophomore Abby Koenig in recent interviews. Given the lack of sustained success prior to 2017, both players were cognizant of what they were doing.

"It seems so unreal that we got here," Davis said. "I'm really proud of how far we got. And I think the youth has a lot of potential. There are a lot of younger players now who have the ability to keep the name going and take Norwalk even further and further.

"We've helped out with the younger grades, and you can see their potential, too."

Pressure is a privilege. But suddenly Norwalk has two starters returning, multiple rotation players, a junior varsity team that was 16-5 — and an incoming freshman class that finished with a 28-4 record in junior high.

When the Truckers broke through and won their first district title in a thrilling overtime win against Bellevue in 2017 — there were also young star-gazers in the crowd.

Just like there was over the past two weeks.

"I remember going to that district championship game," Koenig said. "I was a little fourth-grader who loved that feeling when they won a great game ... I always wanted to do that.

"It's a great feeling to be in that position now," she added. "Little girls look up to us and see us achieving these goals. It encourages them to try harder and get in the gym — then they can also achieve these goals one day."