Former Colonia Standout Takes Over For Tigers
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ–It is official. Â According to an article in the Newark Star-Ledger on Wednesday, the boys basketball team at South Plainfield High School has a new head coach. Â Former Colonia hoops standout, Justin Chiera was recently tabbed to replace Bob Conway as the new coach at SPHS.
Chiera, the younger brother of Colonia head coach, Chris Chiera, played all four years on the varsity squad at Colonia High School. Â He is second on the all time scoring list at the school behind Nick Smith with 1,620 points. Â In his four years at Colonia, the younger Chiera helped the Patriots reached the GMCT final three times (1999, 2001, and 2002) including the conference championship in 2001 over St. Joseph’s. Â Also during his tenure, Colonia reached the Central Jersey Group III title game twice losing to Lawrence in 1999 and Neptune in 2000.
In his senior year at Colonia, Chiera and his Patriots played South Plainfield four times including once in the GMCT and in the opening round of the CJ Group III tourney.  Colonia won all four games.  After graduating from Colonia, Chiera, a two time  GMC Hoops Player of the Year, enjoyed a solid career at Central Connecticut State.  Recently, Chiera had served as an assistant coach for former Monroe head coach, Bob Turco down at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville. Â
Over the summer, Chiera also played in the Jersey Shore Basketball League with fellow Woodbridge Township native, Mike Nardi and former Monroe standout, A.J. Rudowitz on the Investors Bank squad that defeaed T & T Coast for the league championship. Â Chiera takes over for Bob Conway, who served as head coach last season after being an assistant coach to Bill Schulte and Jeff Lubreski. Â In 2010-11, the Tigers were only 6-15, but it was still an improvement over the 4-18 season the year before.
However, SPHS has a talented sophomore class including the likes of Jordan Lackey, Malik Cisson, Rob Eggert, Aidan McDermott, Justin Marks, Chris Mathis, Rommello Monroe, and Andrew Franco. Â Last season, the Little Tigers reached the Championship Game of the Perth Amboy Freshmen Tournament before losing to St. Joseph’s-Green (54-41). Â The SPHS Frosh squad, coached by current AD, Al Czech, earned the second seed in the Amboy tourney. Â The Tigers also have several varsity players returning from last year including Justin Glover, Joe Skwiat, Ray Perez, and Claude Payne.