It was mid-fourth quarter. South Plainfield’s Justin Vaca was looking to make a pass, and he lobbed the ball with his right hand toward the basket.

Was it an alley-op? A pass to someone cutting in the back door?

It ended up going through the basket, a three-pointer to boot. That wasn’t the intent, but that’s kind of the way things went for the 8th-ranked Tigers Tuesday night, in a 56-42 win over visiting Colonia in a GMC crossover game heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio..

It had been a long time since South Plainfield had beaten Colonia. In fact, it had been 21 years, it’s last victory coming in the 2005 GMC Tournament semifinals. Since then, they had played 23 times, with the Patriots winning every single matchup.

Until Tuesday night that is.

The Tigers (7-1) played tenacious defense, forcing uncharacteristic Colonia turnovers, and directly or indirectly, turned them into points on the other end. Vaca, the junior, finished with 17 points, including three that wasn’t meant to be, and had another right after it, helping extending a lead that was once eleven and had shrunk down to five all the way up to 12, before coming out with a 14 point win in the end.

Sophomore Andrew Bena finished with 16.

Colonia (2-6) got 17 out of Jayce Rodriguez, a sophomore who has seen an increased role with the departure of a lot of offensive firepower, but little other offense. Senior Dylan Chiera was next up with eight, but the Patriots were in foul trouble much of the night, including in the decisive fourth when they had fouls to give to try and get back in the game, just no one to commit them without fouling out.

Chiera did, and Desmond Rudanovic, Teagan Amponsah, Tyler Herman and Jayden Johnson all finished the game with four fouls.

Click below to hear postgame reaction from South Plainfield’s Justin Vaca, Andrew Bena and head coach John Greco, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: