North Plainfield – now ranked – getting it done with balanced offense, aggressive defense

With more wins than any other girls’ basketball team in the Middlesex or Somerset Counties heading into the Christmas break – other than Gill St. Bernard’s, which is also 5-0 – North Plainfield is having a banner start to 2023.

It’s easily their best in well over a decade, although last season, their second under Derrick Eatman – who’s also the football coach – they did manage to start 2-0 and win five of their first six games.

This year, though, feels a little different.

For one, they have been solid defensively, allowing the opposition only single digit scoring in 14 of the 16 quarters for which box scores are publicly available, and likely not many more in that fifth game.

They’ve also piled up 93 steals in five games. You read that right: 93. That’s 18.6 steals per game!

They just knocked off the last unbeaten from the Red Division, too. That’s Monroe, and a win that will look very good come GMC Tournament seeding time on the Lady Canucks’ resume. Playing tougher out-of-conference foes was a point of emphasis in 2023-24 for Eatman.

And while there’s no one close to leading the county on the team in scoring at 18 or 20 points a game, they are balanced. 

Sophomore Layla Gutierrez is averaging 11.8 a contest to lead North Plainfield, followed by seniors Saionni Patrick (9.2) and Avani Jones (9), then another sophomore, Kaelyn Hester, with 7.4 points per game.

With all that, they’re ranked No. 4 this week in the Bellamy & Son Paving Week 2 Girls’ Basketball Top Ten. They head into the West Orange Holiday Showcase on Wednesday afternoon at 3:00 against Teaneck, then will play either Paterson Eastside or host West Orange Friday, with the consolation game is at 1 pm, the title game at 3 pm.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with North Plainfield girls’ basketball coach Derrick Eatman: