By Tom Robinson, NEPABasketball.com
SCRANTON – Arvel Chandler made sure there would not be a repeat of the slow start that helped cost Scranton its perfect record two nights earlier.
And, when Holy Redeemer rallied in the fourth quarter of the non-league showdown between top-ranked boys teams, Chandler made sure the Royals did not move in front.
Chandler scored 18 points, including back-to-back, 3-pointers in the middle of a game-deciding, 11-0 run, Wednesday night as the Knights turned back the Royals, 56-46.
“You could feel it that we weren’t ready to play (Monday at Wallenpaupack) and we lost as a result,” Chandler said. “So, we made sure today that we had energy from the start. It’s always great to play at home and I think we responded very well.”
Chandler had eight points, including a four-point play, in the first seven minutes for a 12-5 Scranton lead.
The Knights led for more than 27 of the game’s 32 minutes. Holy Redeemer led for just 2:39 in the second quarter.
In the second half, the Royals tied the game just once, for all of 18 seconds.
Chandler hit his second and third 3-pointers during the streak that gave Scranton a 50-39 lead with 2:54 left.
“I think we’re good at staying calm,” Chandler said. “We weren’t really worried when they tied it. We knew that we could still handle it.
“I think it was important for me to hit those so that we felt comfortable the rest of the game.”
Jacob Hunter, who came off the Holy Redeemer bench to score 12 points, had hit consecutive 3-pointers for a 39-39 tie with 5:30 left.
Scranton went back ahead to stay on the next trip down the floor.
Josh Williams got to the last of his five offensive rebounds and Jason Shields hit a jumper in the lane.
The Royals never even got another shot at the lead.
Rykeese Cenard’s steal led to Chandler’s 3-pointer from the left wing.
Chandler hit from there again 1:20 later, then, following another Cenard steal, Shields drained a 3-pointer from the right corner for the 11-point lead.
“Arvel has struggled the last couple of games,” Scranton coach Tony Battaglia said. “We told him we needed him tonight and he showed up in a big way.
“He made the big shots. He made the big plays. He was vocal on the defense. They’re not easy to stop. It took a yeoman’s effort to hold them down.”
Holy Redeemer scored three more times, including a Justice Shoats three-point play, in the last 2:20, but did not get closer than eight again.
Scranton’s 11-0 run had decided the game between the two No. 1 teams in the My City Mortgage Super Six Power Rankings of District 2 teams.
Prior to Monday’s trip to Wallenpaupack, Scranton had the district’s best record and its only unbeaten mark, boys or girls.
The Knights, ranked first among Big Schools, again have the best boys record at 12-1. They will go back to trying to hold on to first place in Lackawanna League Division 1 and the race for the top seed in the District 2-4 Class 6A Subregional.
Holy Redeemer, the No. 1 Small School in the Super Six as well as the leader of Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 and District 2 Class 3A, fell to 15-2 after an eight-game winning streak came to an end.
That streak, in which the Royals won by an average of more than 29 points, was not what mattered Wednesday.
The competition helped prepare both teams for the postseason runs they hope are ahead.
“This is going to be great for our team in the long run and I hope it’s going to be good for their team down the long run,” Holy Redeemer coach Paul Guido said.
Chandler saw a different type of defense than the Knights have faced many times this season.
“They played us hard,” Chandler said. “I think a lot of teams are going to start to play us the way they did.
“It was a good challenge to see a man defense because not many teams have been playing us like that. It was a great look for us.”
The game did more than match the district’s top-rated teams, it also featured its two most-decorated players squaring off.
Shields and Shoats both have NEPABasketball.com divisional Player of the Year awards on their resume and are the only two players active in District 2 with a previous first-team, all-District 2 selection from the website.
Scranton’s Shields finished with 17 points and 9 rebounds, all on the defensive end where he joined Williams in helping Scranton to a 35-19 advantage on the boards. He also blocked two shots.
Shoats led Holy Redeemer with 14 points. He also led the team in assists with four, steals with three and blocked shots with two.
The two Shoats blocks came on the 6-foot-5 Shields less than 30 seconds apart in the second quarter. He got out to swat a Shields 3-pointer from the corner, then blocked him from behind to prevent a layup.
The Shoats defense meant Shields had to hurry to get off his remaining 3-point attempts, a challenge he accepted while finishing 3-for-5 from long range.
“He’s been working tirelessly at his shot,” Battaglia said. “He gets off a 3-pointer as fast as anyone I’ve seen. He catches it in the slot and it’s gone in a millisecond.
“It’s not an accident. It’s years of hard work of him trying to develop that in order to play in games like this where you’re playing against top, Division I-caliber athletes.”
While Chandler and Shields led Scranton to a 50-percent shooting night from long distance, Williams helped put them just above that mark overall by going 5-for-7 while adding 10 points and 9 rebounds.
“One of the keys for us normally is that we want to control both backboards,” Guido said. “In the second half, Josh Williams was a big factor of getting second chances, keeping the ball live for them.
“ … I really think the way he controlled the glass in the second half in getting some of those second chances, getting some of those putbacks in the lane, really kind of swung the momentum.”
Williams had four of his five offensive rebounds in the second half when Scranton’s rebounding advantage soared to 20-7.
A.J. Dinterman chipped in five points, six rebounds and four assists for the Knights while Cenard had four points, four steals and three assists.
While Shoats and Hunter scored in double figures, Zach Perta and Matt Prociak had nine points each for Holy Redeemer.
Prociak had six points and Shoats provided a boost with his two blocks, a basket and a no-look assist during a 10-0, second-quarter burst that pushed Holy Redeemer into the lead for the only time. The streak gave the Royals a 19-14 lead, but was answered by eight straight, including consecutive 3-pointers by Shields.
Minutes before making his 3-pointers, Hunter also hit an 18-footer a second before the third-quarter buzzer.
“They really threw some knockout punches at us in a couple different stretches in some runs that they were on,” Guido said. “Credit to our club, we call a timeout, talk about a couple things, refocus, recircle the wagons and go right back out there and cut that deficit down.”
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