South Plainfield Hoops Legend Cirafesi Still Remains Gold Standard
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ—This past Tuesday night, the terrific season for the 2021-22 South Plainfield Tigers came to an end. Falling in double overtime to top seeded Colonia in the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 2 Group 3 Championship, 2nd seeded SPHS finished at 23-7. This year’s team finished with the 4th highest win total in school history, and 9th best in terms of winning percentage.
This year’s top player at South Plainfield was junior Brandon Dean. After leading the team in scoring as a sophomore during the COVID, shortened 2020-21 campaign, Dean played in 28 of the Tigers’ 30 games, and scored a total of 625 points, or an average of 22.3 per game. As great as Dean’s season was this year, it pales in comparison to one man. He is the only 1,000 point scorer at South Plainfield that GMC Hoops never saw. His name was Wally Cirafesi, the school’s first 1,000 point scorer, from the SPHS Class of 1966.
Historic South Plainfield Boys Basketball Teams
| Year | Record | Percentage |
| 2003-04 | 27-1 | 0.964 |
| 1963-64 | 24-1 | 0.960 |
| 1959-60 | 21-1 | 0.955 |
| 1964-65 | 22-3 | 0.880 |
| 1990-91 | 24-4 | 0.857 |
| 1961-62 | 20-4 | 0.833 |
| 1965-66 | 19-5 | 0.792 |
| 1966-67 | 19-5 | 0.792 |
| 2021-22 | 23-6 | 0.767 |
| 2004-05 | 19-6 | 0.760 |
| 2002-03 | 17-6 | 0.739 |
| 1962-63 | 17-6 | 0.739 |
| 1989-90 | 20-8 | 0.714 |
| 2006-07 | 18-8 | 0.692 |
During his senior year at South Plainfield, the 1965-66 campaign, Cirafesi scored 640 points in just 24 games for an average of 26.7 points per contest. And, oh by the way, there wasn’t a three point line back then. The three point shot wasn’t introduced into New Jersey High School boys basketball until the 1987-88 season.
This past season, Dean had four games in which he scored 30 points or more, which is something you don’t come across these days in Tigertown. Included in those four 30 point performances, were a 36 point effort in a 71-60 victory over Pingry at the GMC vs. Skyland Challenge held at Bound Brook High School on January 8th, and a season high 37 in a 78-64 win over Spotswood that clinched the GMC Blue. Both games were covered by GMC Hoops.
Historic South Plainfield Boys Basketball Individual Scoring Games
| Player | Points Scored | Year |
| Lamont Williams | 55 | 2016 |
| Joe Thompson | 39 | 1986 |
| Wally Cirafesi | 39 | 1966 |
| Wally Cirafesi | 38 | 1965 |
| Brandon Dean | 37 | 2022 |
| Jim Cirafesi | 37 | 1960 |
| Brandon Dean | 36 | 2022 |
| Mike Thompson | 35 | 1997 |
| Marquis Jones | 35 | 2005 |
| Darren Smith | 35 | 2005 |
| Dominique Pender | 33 | 2000 |
| Darren Smith | 31 | 2005 |
| Eddie Bolton | 31 | 1991 |
| Brandon Dean | 30 | 2022 |
| Brandon Dean | 30 | 2022 |
By contrast, Cirafesi set the school record for most points in a game twice during the 1965-66 campaign. In the season opener versus Somerville on December 10, 1965, Cirafesi, a three sport start at South Plainfield scored 38 points on 14 field goals and 10 free throws in a 72-61 victory. The mark broke the previous one set by his older brother Jim Cirafesi back in 1960. Nearly two months later, Cirafesi would do it again.
On February 4, 1966, Cirafesi pumped in a game high 39 as South Plainfield held off a challenge from Metuchen in a 71-68 victory. While Dean didn’t see much action as a freshman two seasons ago, he still managed to play a bit in seven games including a January 13, 2020 contest at South River where he scored 5 points. Cirafesi didn’t play any varsity at all his freshman year.
Instead, Cirafesi, who later played college football at Penn State with the likes of Franco Harris (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Lydell Mitchell (Baltimore Colts), led the freshman team to a undefeated record while scoring 20 points per game including 31 in a 70-27 victory over Middlesex in the team’s season finale. He was also a key contributor to South Plainfield’s only state championship team in 1963-64.
Despite missing two games early on in the season due to illness, Cirafesi, then a sophomore, helped guide SPHS to unprecedented heights that season. The Tigers went 24-1 including an 18 game winning streak to start the season, and defeated Summit for the state title. In 17 games where GMC Hoops was able to locate a box score from the South Plainfield’s Suburban Review that season, Cirafesi tallied 165 points, or about 9.7 points per contest.
In 1964-65, Cirafesi, who broke the previous SPHS career scoring mark set by Paul Thievon (943 points), led the team back to the state final, but this time, the Tigers fell to Newark South Side, and finished 22-3. Over his three year varsity career at South Plainfield, Cirafesi roughly averaged 18.1 points per game while the Tigers compiled a mark of 65-9 overall, won two sectional crowns, and a state title.
South Plainfield Boys Basketball All Time Scoring List
| Player Name | Points Scored | Year Graduated |
| Marquis Jones | 1,436 | 2005 |
| Joe Thompson | 1,314 | 1986 |
| Wally Cirafesi | 1,304 | 1966 |
| Michael Thompson | 1,185 | 1997 |
| Darren Smith | 1,113 | 2005 |
| Lamont Williams | 1,024 | 2016 |
| Mike Burton | 1,013 | 2009 |
To date, Dean, who scored 197 points or 13.1 points per game as a sophomore, has 827 career points in 50 games or an average of 16.5 points per game. Dean only stands at 5’11” while Cirafesi stood at 6’2”. Cirafesi finished with 1,304 points at South Plainfield, and that record stood for nearly 20 full seasons until Joe Thompson broke it against St. Mary’s of South Amboy on February 22, 1986 in South Amboy.
Thompson, who graduated in 1986, also matched Cirafesi’s individual scoring mark of 39 points against St. Joseph’s back on January 14, 1986. In that game, the Tigers jumped out to a 17-2 lead, but the Falcons ultimately caught up to win, 72-68. The school record would be eclipsed by another 1,000 point scorer, Lamont Williams versus Koinonia Academy on February 22, 2016 when he scored 55 points.
The SPHS career scoring mark set by Thompson would stand for almost 19 years until Marquis Jones set the new mark in January 2005. Jones, who finished with 1,436 points still holds the current career scoring mark at South Plainfield. Dean only needs 610 more points to break that mark. If he is able to stay healthy and the Tigers can approach the success of this past season, Dean has a chance to achieve that.
NOTE: Information for this article was collected from digital archives of the South Plainfield Suburban Review from 1963 to 1966 in the South Plainfield Library as well as the 1962-63 South Plainfield Yearbook.