Connor Cranage repeated an individual award by leading the Blue Ridge team to a new level of success.
The Blue Ridge junior, who surpassed 1,000 points for his career along the way, is the Lackawanna League Division 4 Player of the Year for the second straight season. He led the Raiders to the first division title in the school’s 70-year history.
The team selected by NEPASportsNation.com was posted Saturday night, beginning the series of division all-star team releases.
Cranage was also Player of the Year last season, as selected by NEPABasketball.com, which has since been merged into NEPASportsNation.com. He was a first-team, all-star as a freshman.
On the season, which included a trip to Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza for the District 2 Class 2A championship game, Cranage averaged more than 21 points, 8½ rebounds and 3½ steals per game.
John Duffy from Forest City, the team that handed Blue Ridge its only divisional loss and came within a game of first place, was selected Coach of the Year. The Foresters improved from 7-5 to 10-2 in the division and later became the only team from the division to reach the state tournament by making it to the District 2-11 Class A Subregional final.
Forest City also placed two players on the first team.
Dylan Bezek, who was a second-team choice two years ago, repeated on the first team and was joined this time by D.J. Heath.
Elk Lake’s Wyatt Casselbury makes the first team for the second straight year.
Susquehanna’s Colton Stone moves up from second team to first team.
Jack Russell from Montrose completes the first team.
J.J. Rosa from Blue Ridge and Sam Stashko from Montrose made the second team for the second straight season.
Carson Gallagher gave the championship Raiders team another second-team choice.
The full team:
LACKAWANNA LEAGUE DIVISION 4
Coach of the Year
John Duffy, Forest City
Player of the Year
Connor Cranage, Blue Ridge junior
First Team
Dylan Bezek, Forest City senior
Wyatt Casslebury, Elk Lake senior
D.J. Heath, Forest City senior
Jack Russell, Montrose sophomore
Colton Stone, Susquehanna junior
Second Team
J.T. Burke, Susquehanna junior
Carson Gallagher, Blue Ridge junior
J.J. Rosa, Blue Ridge senior
Sam Stashko, Montrose senior
Tanner Stout, Mountain View senior
