Raymond and Daniels-Porter Lead Ramblers in Dominant Win Over Tigers
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ–In a highly anticipated first week match-up, Carteret traveled to South Plainfield to take on a Tigers team that moved down to the Blue Division for the 2016-17 season. Carteret showed in the contest that it looked more like a White Division team than South Plainfield did in a 60-35 win. Kahir Raymond and Isaiah Daniels-Porter led the way in the victory with 13 and 12 points respectively.
The Ramblers jumped out to a 19-5 first quarter lead, and went on to lead 30-13 at halftime. Then, Carteret opened the third quarter on an 11-5 run including a foul line jumper by Jemar Jordan (8 points, 7 blocks, 5 rebounds, 4 steals, and 2 assists) and a three pointer from the left corner by Nasseir Moore (8 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists) to take a 41-18 lead midway through the period.
South Plainfield attempted to make the game more respectable with a 10-4 spurt to end the period as Dylan O’Connor (12 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and a block) and Jared Marks (3 points, 2 steals, and an assist) netted threes to pull the Tigers to within 17 at the end of the third. Carteret wouldn’t let SPHS get any closer though. Instead, the Ramblers ended the game with a 15-7 showing in the fourth to close out the 60-35 victory.
South Plainfield outscored Carteret by a margin of 21-6 from beyond the arc, but the Tigers weren’t able to score inside against the impenetrable Ramblers defense as they were outscored by a 40-12 margin inside the arc. Carteret also had an 11-2 advantage at the free throw line. The Ramblers also had edges in rebounds (31-19), assists (14-7), and blocks (9-6). The Tigers had more steals (15-13).
Carteret’s defense was really tough on South Plainfield’s veteran duo of Deshai Smith (2 points) and Will McLaughlin (3 points) by limiting them both to a combined 5 points. With the victory, Carteret, which defeated Spotswood in its season opener on Friday (77-62), improved to 2-0 both overall and in division on the young season while South Plainfield, an overtime winner over Middlesex at home in its season opener on Friday night (69-60), dropped to 1-1 overall and in divisional play.
The big week for the Ramblers will resume on Wednesday when they host Middlesex at 5:30 PM, and then a big showdown with Blue Division favorite, Bishop Ahr on Friday at 3:00 PM. South Plainfield’s next game will be on Thursday when it travels to South River to take on the Rams that are fresh off a 79-48 rout of neighborhood rival Spotswood at 7:00 PM. You can view highlights from the second half of this game in the blog.