Basketball was a sport that Spencer Hay had in his genes from the day he was born.

His dad, Jim, was a 1974 graduate of Palmerton Area High School, where he was an outstanding athlete in both basketball and track and field.His sister Kelsey, now a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, also excelled in basketball and track and field at Palmerton.To say Spencer has followed in their footsteps would be an understatement.His dad ended up scoring 929 career points at Palmerton and went on to score 1,424 points at Muhlenberg College.Kelsey finished her Palmerton career with 1,350 points.The four-year varsity standout joined the 1,000-point club at PHS in the final game of the regular season against Northern Lehigh and finished the season as the Times News boys' leading scorer by 64 points over Jim Thorpe's Rayan Green and Tamaqua's Thad Zuber. That was one of the reasons he was selected as the 2015-16 Times News Boys Basketball Player of the Year.He averaged 18 points a game, finishing his senior year with 396 points and also pulled down just over 200 rebounds."Overall, I think the season was a success, because early on we were getting key injuries, and that just hurt our team and chemistry, he said. "We really got a lift from the new kids who really didn't get a chance to play varsity last year. They really stepped it up and were a big impact on the team."Even though it wasn't a victory for the game in which he scored his season high (33 vs. Brandywine Heights), he considered his performance against league power Bangor on the road as one he'll remember the most."Against Bangor I had 30 points, and just playing that good against a team that made it to the second round of states and being able to score against some of their best players really showed we were the real deal and we could step it up when we needed to," he added. "We didn't come out with the win but we really gave them a fight."I just tried to get going early on and even get my teammates going, because if we have an outside threat they aren't going to be pressuring me as far out and they'll have to guard them," he said. "It created some space for me to take shots and drive to the basket."The only game he didn't score in double figures this season was against Panther Valley.What people didn't know is that from early in the season, Spencer was playing with pain in his leg. He didn't even tell his coach (Leigh Keenan) or get checked out until after the season so he wouldn't lose any playing time.After his final game, he decided he'd better get it looked at before track season and was diagnosed with having a stress fracture in his left tibia and tendinitis.Hay was also selected to play in the Via All-Star Basketball Classic, but was forced to miss it due to the injury."He was a two-way player, was extremely poised and very unselfish," Keenan said. "He was a big player who could handle the ball and averaged around three assists a game."He usually had two or three guys guarding him, but still was able to get great court position. He's a competitor. Coming into the season, we knew he was the player we were going to lean on. He knew that and that's why he was our leading scorer, shot blocker and rebounder."Hay will continue his basketball career at Penn State Berks for the next two years before heading to University Park to get his degree.