Valley View girls, St. Paul’s boys win titles
SCRANTON – The Valley View Lady Cougars rallied in overtime and the St. Paul’s Crusaders boys pulled away in the second half Saturday at Riverfront Sports while winning 8th Grade Division championships in the Holiday Youth Basketball Tournament, powered by Dempsey’s Fashionable Laundry.
Valley View defeated the Moscow Magic, 37-34, in the Elam Ending overtime format where the first team to score five points in the untimed extra session wins.
St. Paul’s downed Riverside, 55-39, in the final game to be decided.
The event drew 44 teams to Riverfront for 50 games in 7 divisions Dec. 26-31. Every team played at least twice and the seven champions, who each went undefeated in the single-elimination format, were crowned Saturday.
Ava Fenton scored 17 points and made 9 steals to lead Valley View in the final and Eva Kaszuba brought the Cougars back in overtime.
Moscow worked its way back from a 19-10 halftime deficit to force overtime, then scored first in the extra period.
Kaszuba completed a tough finish, making a contested, twisting layup from almost directly under the basket on the fastbreak to tie the game.
Then, Kaszuba set up on the left wing to receive a pass in transition and calmly swished an open 3-pointer to end the game.
Julia Biko led Moscow with 14 points. Kayli McHugh added 10 and Ella Clementoni had 8.
Fenton and Kaszuba were joined on the championship Valley View team by Addison Howanitz, Ella Mackrell, Arianna Caprari, Giulia Costa, Clair Miller, Myla Pierson and Sadie Cardoni.
Valley View got to the final by defeating Old Forge, 54-16, in Tuesday’s quarterfinals and Dunmore, 50-27, in Friday’s semifinals.
St. Paul’s led the Boys 8th Grade final, 19-14, at halftime.
Riverside closed to within two points before St. Paul’s went on a 14-3 run, started and ended by C.J. Thompson 3-pointers. When Thompson nailed a shot from the left corner with 7:25 left, St. Paul’s had a 46-33 lead.
Max McGrath led St. Paul’s with 22 points. Thompson added 18.
Finn Mulligan chipped in seven second-half points after Alex Scanlan had scored six in the first half.
Riverside was led by 23 points from Brayden Rose.
St. Paul’s defeated the Chapman Lakers, 64-37, and All Saints Academy, 56-31, Tuesday and Friday to earn its title shot.
The rest of the championship Crusaders roster for the tournament was: Kevin Hayes, Matthew Watkins, Chase Beistline, Matthew Skoff, Charlie Skoff, Brian James, Jacob Belcher, Chris Manning, Nicholas Michel, Will McCabe and Jake Conaboy.
Other boys champions Saturday were: the Valley View Cougars in 7th Grade, Maine-Endwell (N.Y.) in 6th Grade and Abington in 5th Grade.
The other girls champions were Holy Rosary in the 6th-7th Grade Division and Dunmore in the 5th Grade Division.
For more information on those championship teams visit the Riverfront Sports page on Facebook.
