South Plainfield’s Lamont Williams Led GMC in Threes Made
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| Lamont Williams follows through on a three pointer against Timothy Christian in the 2016 GMCT Play-In Round on February 13th. Williams, who led the GMC with 76 three pointers, is the 2016 GMC Hoops Sharpshooter of the Year. |
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ–Lamont Williams has always been a prolific scorer at South Plainfield High School. The Tigers’ senior guard became the seventh player in SPHS history to score 1,000 points for his career, and the first since 2009. The way he did it was even more noteworthy.
During the final week of the regular season in late February, Williams needed 55 points to reach the milestone. On February 22nd, the Tigers took on Koinonia Academy, and Williams went to work. He collected 11 field goals, 9 threes, and 6 foul shots to get the necessary 55 points to become the 7th of nine GMC players to reach 1,000 this season.
The next night, Williams struck again from long distance to beat the buzzer and force overtime, and South Plainfield took advantage with an 84-78 win over Piscataway Tech. Williams finished with 24 points to end up with 1,024 for his career. Playing mostly in his junior and senior seasons at South Plainfield, Williams, played in 50 games had tallied 217 field goals, 139 threes, and 172 free throws.
A year ago, Williams netted 63 trifectas, and this year, he was even better with 76 to lead the GMC. South River’s Mario Nigro was the closest with 72 treys. He averaged 23.2 points per game this season, which was 5.6 points higher than last year’s scoring average. His 55 points against a Koinonia was a career high, and may be a school record.
Previous scoring marks at South Plainfield that I’m aware of include Joe Thompson scoring 39 points for the Tigers in a game against St. Joseph’s in the inaugural GMC season of 1985-86. Joe’s nephew, Michael Thompson, scored 35 in a game against St. Peter’s back in February, 1997. Darren Smith pumped in 31 including a record 6 three pointers against St. Joseph’s in the 2005 GMCT Final. Another player had 41 against Franklin back in the day.
So over the 50 games he played at South Plainfield, Williams averaged nearly 20.5 points per game, and 2.8 made threes per contest. He scorers in double figures in 25 of the 26 games played by South Plainfield this season. Of those 25 games, Williams scored at least 20 points in 19 of them. He had at least 30 points four times this season. Williams had at least one three in 23 of the 26 games played, at least 3 treys in a game 17 times, and at least four threes in a game seven times.
GMC Hoops All Perimeter Team
First Team
- Lamont Williams–South Plainfield*
- Mario Nigro–South River
- Alex Corrigan–J.P. Stevens
- Ali Austin–Piscataway Tech
- Eric Dadika–Spotswood
- Stephen Strom–Old Bridge
Second Team
- Derrick Whitaker–South River
- Andrew Fuzesi–Spotswood
- Connor Romano–Old Bridge
- Pedro Gonzalez–Perth Amboy Tech
- Bree Tyree–St. Joseph’s
- Mike Kides–Monroe
Third Team
- Quran Robinson–Woodbridge
- Mike Ugarte–South Brunswick
- Will McLaughlin–South Plainfield
- Matt Ross–East Brunswick
- Addis Ralph–East Brunswick
- Pranay Bhandare–North Brunswick
- Ryan O’Leary–Sayreville
*–GMC Hoops Sharpshooter of the Year