NAPPANEE — In the season that some refer to as “the most wonderful time of the year,” there are occasionally events that prove otherwise. One such example for Wawasee fans would be the showing the boys basketball team had Friday night.

The Warriors traveled to Nappanee and could not find a way to escape the pressure-packed Panther Pit as NorthWood prevailed to an astounding 83-43 victory over its Northern Lakes Conference rival.

With the student section in full throat, the Panthers won the tip, hit a three and never looked back the rest of the night.

The first quarter was NorthWood’s best friend as the team shot 65 percent from the field and forced four turnovers. Leading the charge was Panther junior Zach Zurcher, who put the already raucous crowd into a frenzy after throwing down a one-handed dunk midway through the quarter, the second of Zurcher’s three dunks on the night.

The Warriors could not find an answer for Zurcher as he would finish his night with 26 points, five rebounds, three steals and one block. The junior did all of that damage in only three quarters of play as he was pulled before the beginning of the fourth by coach Aaron Wolfe.

Following the game, coach Wolfe was all smiles and made sure to talk about Friday’s win being a team effort.

“I thought we were fortunate to get off to an early start as a team,” Wolfe stated. “We got off to a quick start and it really gave our guys some confidence. Also, I think Wawasee missed some shots that they generally make and that helped us early on as well.”

Coach Wolfe may have been putting it nicely as Wawasee hit on just 24 percent of its shots, going 14 of 59 from the field, 9 of 42 from long distance, and only 6 of 15 from the charity stripe. Another statistic that hurt the Warriors was turnovers. Wawasee coughed up the ball 17 times during the game, a stat that Warrior coach Phil Mishler saw as a focal point for his team’s performance on Friday.

“We made a lot of bad passes early on,” Mishler stated. “We had a lot of cross-court weak passes that they were able to take away from us and turn into early dunks and early lay-ups. That just really hurt our mentality.”

Though the early start was the catalyst for NorthWood’s victory, the second half was just as good to the home team. Juniors Tanner Farmwald and Will Stueve would score seven and six points collectively to help the team’s 40-point second-half effort. As for Wawasee, the Warriors put together a slightly more productive second-half compared to the first. Leading the way for the visitors was sophomore Alex Clark who hit two three-pointers to help his 13-point effort. Clark would also add four rebounds and a steal. Clark was the only Warrior to score double-digits on the night.

“I think as a group we have to keep working together on getting better and believing and not lose that focus,” added Mishler.

NorthWood improves to 8-1 on the season and 2-0 in NLC play and will host New Prairie on Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the Warriors fall to 3-6 on the 2012-13 campaign and 0-2 in conference. Wawasee, mired in a four-game losing streak, have lost those four games by an average of 28 points per contest. The Warriors next game will be Friday when they travel to Elkhart to take on Memorial.

In the junior varsity game the Panthers were also victorious, winning 42-31 over the Wawasee JV squad. NorthWood’s Gabe Williams and Wawasee’s Justin Ciriello led all scorers with 12 points each.