BARRE, Vt. – The Norwich University men's basketball team won their opening contest of the Granite City Shootout, defeating Vermont Tech 78-51.  With the Win the Cadets are off to their best start since the 1984-85 season when they opened the year with four straight wins.

Donovan Lewis Jr. (Savannah, Ga.) led the Cadets with 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field, collecting 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season. Owen Liss (West Suffield, Conn.) added 14 points coming off the bench for Norwich, and Kyle Booth (Northfield, Vt.) added another 14, knocking down two three-pointers.

After knocking down the first four points of the game, the Knights trailed by one with 16:23 before Samuel-Noah Osarenkhoe (Stockholm, Sweden) hit a three-pointer to help spark the Cadets to jump out to a 12-point lead.

Norwich and the Knights went into the halftime break, with the Cadets leading 41-31.

Osarenkhoe came out of the half, opening scoring for the Cadets with another three-point jumper. Norwich was able to expand their lead to 19 points before a Liss layup put the Cadets up by 21, closing the game outscoring the Knights 11-5.

Norwich (4-0, 0-0 GNAC) will be back in action tomorrow afternoon, in a 4 p.m. matchup against Castleton, closing out the Granite City Shootout. They will then travel to Henniker, N.H. to face the Pilgrims. They will then host the Hockenbury Classic on the weekend of Dec. 4 opening against Colby-Sawyer in their first Great Northeast Athletic Conference contest of the season.