SCRANTON, Pa. — Our final Super 16 Countdown of the basketball season is always highly debated and highly scrutinized.
On the boys' side, you could make the argument for Scranton, Dallas and St. John Neumann to take the top spot, but only one team can claim the trophy.
Newswatch 16 gave the number one ranking to Scranton and this week, delivered the hardware to the Knights. Scranton finished with the best record in the viewing area at 23-3. Led by Jason Shields, who had a stellar senior year, and Arvel Chandler, the Knights won the Lynett Tournament, the Lackawanna League and the District II/IV Subregional title this season. The run ended against Lower Merion in the loaded Class 6A PIAA bracket. It's the first Super 16 Basketball title in school history.
"Oh, it's amazing!" Scranton Boys Basketball Coach Tony Battaglia said. "It's a great honor for these guys and there are so many great teams in the viewing area to be named #1 out of that crew is amazing. From the beginning of every year we start off by saying that we want to win the Lynett, the league and districts and we want to make a good showing in states and we accomplished all of those goals. Along the way we had some tough games that came down to the final seconds and these guys showed up every single time that we needed them to."
"It's great," Shields, a Scranton senior, added. "I mean just seeing that we are being rewarded for all the hard work that we put in on the off-season and how hard that we worked during the season I mean I think that our team deserved an award like this and not just the guys that played it's the guys that have pushed us all year to be the best team that we could."
"It's just great to get another one I should say," Chandler, another senior, said. "It's been a while so it's just another showing of what we have done this year and it's an amazing thing."