Good morning everyone. Trying again to get myself back into the swing of things after a busy few days away from the web site. However, I have been reading the papers, and keeping in touch with what’s been happening around the conference. One game, and result that caught my attention was South Plainfield’s win over North Brunswick on Monday night. Now true, both of these teams I projected to finish near the bottom of the very tough GMC White this year, but each squad has been quite competitive early on this season.
Prior to Monday night, South Plainfield had been 0-6, but lost five of those games by 11 points or less in a start very similar to last season. Meanwhile, North Brunswick had been off to a good start with three wins in its first four games before losing to Ewing by one on Saturday (59-58), and then to the Tigers (52-49). Both schools have talent with the Raiders having a senior class that finished third in the 2006 Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament, and South Plainfield’s senior class won the GMC Middle School Tournament over the Carl Sandberg Middle School in Old Bridge back when they were eighth graders.
In addition, each team has some other fine players and newcomers. For example, North Brunswick has sophomore Tait Pirkle as well as freshman Dillon Salva on their roster while South Plainfield has a newcomer named Nick Lewis, a transfer from England that will be suiting up later this month after he has sat the mandatory 30 days for transfer students. The victory by the Tigers came on the road at North Brunswick, where they have been quite successful over the past two seasons. Last year, on January 29th, South Plainfield went into North Brunswick Township, and came away with a hard fought, close, 48-47 victory over the Raiders.
On opening weekend, the Tigers gave frontrunner and GMCT title contender, Cardinal McCarrick all that it could handle in an overtime loss (64-60) at SPHS. With Carteret getting off to a very slow start (1-4 overall, and 0-3 in the GMC White), it is very possible that one, if not both of these teams could move up at least a notch in the standings by season’s end. In addition, Monroe and Sayreville have gotten off to fine starts, which have the Falcons and Bombers battling Cardinal McCarrick and Colonia for division honors. Ironically, South Plainfield will be taking on Monroe at home this evening while Sayreville will be traveling to Cardinal McCarrick in what will be a fine start to a brand new neighborhood rivalry in the GMC. One thing to note, the last time Monroe went into South Plainfield, the Falcons lost while the last time Sayreville took on a top five team in the GMC Hoops Top Ten on January 7th on the road, they came away with a victory.
As stated in the pre-season, the GMC White will be another dogfight this year with a lot of close games, and jockeying for position in the standings.