By Tom Robinson, NEPA Sports Nation
Players from the NEPA Elite AAU club shined throughout the 2021 high school basketball season.
Of the 20 players that received Brucelli Advertising District 2 Player of the Week awards from NEPABasketball.com during the season, 13 – 8 of the 10 girls and 5 of the 10 boys – had spent the summer and fall of 2020 playing for NEPA Elite teams. The list of 60 nominees, with 3 boys and 3 girls considered for each of the 10 weeks, included 29 players from the club.
Half of the additional girls nominations were NEPA Elite players.
Seven of the players from the NEPA Elite Clark 17U girls teams that won the Hoop Group Showcase League title wound up landing Brucelli Advertising District 2 Girls Player of the Week awards.
Scranton Prep’s Rachael Rose was a District 2 Girls Player of the Week selection by NEPABasketball.com in all four seasons of her high school career.
Riverside’s Kyle Lavelle, Dunmore’s Moriah Murray and Western Wayne’s Kaeli Romanowski, who played on the Clark team in 2020 and will again in 2021, all were among the players selected.
Other selections from the 2020 Clark team were Cecelia Collins from Scranton Prep, Clair Marion from Abington Heights and Olivia Ciullo from Old Forge.
Trinity Johnson from Wyoming Valley West, another NEPA Elite player, was the first selection of the season.
Half of the Brucelli Advertising District 2 Boys Players of the Week were NEPA Elite players in 2020.
They were Nick Nocito from Dallas, Jason Shields from Scranton, Cole Walker from Wilkes-Barre Area, Caleb Vigil from Lakeland and Justice Shoats from Holy Redeemer.
Nocito, Shields and Shoats are all on the NEPA Elite Coyle 17U boys team this AAU season.
Kaci Kranson from Holy Cross was one of the final three girls considered in three of the 10 weeks. Rose and Ciullo were nominated two times before being selected on their third nomination. Lavelle was nominated once before being chosen.
NEPA Elite girls players from the 2020 AAU season who were nominated also included Lake-Lehman’s Claire Dougherty and Dunmore’s Ciera Toomey.
Ethan Meuser from Wyoming Seminary was a 2020 NEPA Elite player who was one of the final three boys nominees in two of the weeks.
Walker and Shields were each nominated once before being selected. Austin Finarelli from Dallas and Harry Anderson from Abington Heights were also nominees.
Each week’s selection included a feature story about the player chosen.
Below are links to the NEPABasketball.com Player of the Week features for the 13 NEPA Elite players that were honored during the 2021 season:
BRUCELLI ADVERTISING DISTRICT 2 PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Boys
Dallas’ Nick Nocito: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/BPlayer4Nocito.
Scranton’s Jason Shields: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/BPlayer5Shields.
Wilkes-Barre Area’s Cole Walker: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/BPlayer6Walker.
Lakeland’s Caleb Vigil: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/BPlayer7Vigil.
Holy Redeemer’s Justice Shoats: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/BPlayer7Shoats.
Girls
Wyoming Valley West’s Trinity Johnson: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer1Johnson.
Scranton Prep’s Cecelia Collins: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer2Collins.
Riverside’s Kylie Lavelle: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer3Lavelle.
Dunmore’s Moriah Murray: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer4MurrayNew.
Abington Heights’ Clair Marion: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer5Marion.
Western Wayne’s Kaeli Romanowski: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer6Romanowski.
Old Forge’s Olivia Ciullo: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer7Ciullo.
Scranton Prep’s Rachael Rose: https://nepabasketball.com/2020-21/articles/GPlayer10Rose.
