Moshier: Proctor remembers "Big-Shot Battle"

Two years ago, after Utica’s Thomas R. Proctor High School had won a second straight Section III Class AA boys basketball championship, a Bishop Maginn senior point guard from Albany scored 34 points and the Raiders’ season ended with a 68-61 loss in the state quarterfinals.

 

That guard’s name was Talor Battle, he went on to finish his scholastic career with 2,161 career points, and Tuesday night, he helped lead his Penn State University team to next week’s NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden.

 

Battle, a Penn State sophomore, scored 13 points and had five assists as the Nittany Lions advanced with Tuesday’s 71-62 quarterfinal road win over top-seeded Florida. With Battle averaging 16.8 points per game, Penn State (25-11) has matched its single-season record for wins. He also was a first-team All-Big Ten selection who led the conference with 17.3 points per game and was second with 4.9 assists per game.

 

Two years ago, coach Norm Stamboly’s Proctor team came within a win of reaching the state Final Four championships in Glens Falls. It took a talent like Talor Battle to end the Raiders’ run. Two years later, what Battle is doing now shows what that Proctor team was up against.