in a 58-40 win over the Knights in a District 2-4 Class 6A boys basketball quarterfinal at Hazleton Area High School<\/a>.<\/p>\nAfter watching from the bench for the entire first half, the speedy Paulino hounded Tony Battaglia from one end of the floor to the other throughout the second half. Battaglia wound up with only four points after halftime after the Scranton sharpshooter torched the Cougars for 12 first-half points, including nine on three 3-pointers in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just played good team basketball,\u201d Hazleton Area coach Pat Brogan said. \u201c(Paulino) did a phenomenal job \u2026 setting the tone for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without Battaglia\u2019s scoring and his teammates losing steam as the game progressed, Scranton\u2019s five-year grip on the title was finally loosened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to spread the floor and get the matchups and the shots we wanted in the first half,\u201d Scranton coach Tony Battaglia said. \u201cThe pace was our pace, but we spent a lot of energy getting to that point. When I looked at our kids\u2019 eyes at halftime, I knew it was going to be a tough challenge to go out and repeat that in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brogan and his team knew the Knights weren\u2019t about to give up their title without a fight, despite their deceiving 7-15 record entering the contest.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he was pleased after the Cougars (12-11) jumped out to a 13-5 lead after one quarter. Stish had the hot hand early with three of his five 3-pointers coming in that quarter. Ortiz added the Cougars\u2019 other four points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the Dylan Stish I\u2019ve been waiting for the entire year,\u201d Brogan said. \u201cWe saw a little bit of that from him against Williamsport, against Reading (and) in a few other games, but this was a game where he really stepped up. He knows this is playoff basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back-to-back 3s by Stish and Ortiz and later another 3-pointer by Oscaudy Vasquez maintained Hazleton Area\u2019s eight-point advantage for much of the second quarter. The Cougars might have been even more comfortably ahead if not for the younger Battaglia\u2019s three 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
The Knights ultimately got contributions from others, namely baskets from Justin Mayers and Deondre Dickey to whittle their deficit to only three (26-23) by halftime.<\/p>\n
Then came the second half, when the Cougars made sure Scranton got no closer.<\/p>\n
Moran sparked Hazleton Area\u2019s 22-5 advantage in the third quarter with nine of his 13 points as they reclaimed momentum. With Macko running the point, the Cougars then controlled possession for most of the fourth quarter and went on to snap a five-game playoff losing streak to its Lackawanna League opponent.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, the win earned the Cougars a third meeting with Wyoming Valley Conference Division 1 rival Wilkes-Barre Area in Monday\u2019s semifinals in Plains Twp. But not before a collective sigh of relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, Scranton\u2019s very good,\u201d Brogan said. \u201cBattaglia is one of the toughest kids and one of best shooters I\u2019ve ever seen at the high school level. \u2026 I think (Paulino) might have taken him out of his game a little bit in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Knights found points hard to come by, Moran\u2019s old-fashioned three-point play, Ortiz\u2019s putback of his own miss, consecutive 3-pointers by Stish and Paulino, a Moran layup off a pretty Ortiz feed and Macko\u2019s basket following a steal gave the Cougars a 43-27 lead with time winding down in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not a very good come-from-behind team. \u2026 We just don\u2019t have the firepower for it; we don\u2019t trap really well; and we don\u2019t have the size for it,\u201d Coach Battaglia said. \u201cOnce we fell behind in the third quarter, I knew it was going to be very tough for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking only layups out of their delay offense, Hazleton Area\u2019s lead rarely dipped below 20 points in the final quarter, when the Cougars began to empty their bench and direct their attention to Monday\u2019s showdown at Wilkes-Barre Area.<\/p>\n
The Knights, meanwhile, were left to reflect on a remarkable five-year run as subregional champs, the past three with Battaglia Sr. and Battaglia Jr. leading the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough, very emotional in there,\u201d Coach Battaglia said, after seeing his son take off his Scranton uniform for the final time. \u201cI\u2019ve been watching him play since he was a tiny, little guy. How many times he said, \u2018Dad, let\u2019s go shoot, let\u2019s go shoot!\u2019 And we\u2019d go shoot a thousand shots. He worked exceptionally hard to become the player he has, and I couldn\u2019t be any prouder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hazleton Area\u2019s Occandy Vasquez (23) and Scranton\u2019s Tony Battaglia (4) battle for the ball during their District 2-4…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5523,305,201,803,28,231,178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-117806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-carbon-county","9":"tag-high-school-sports","10":"tag-lackawanna-county","11":"tag-luzerne-county","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-schuylkill-county","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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