West's Williams Eclipses 1,000-Point Career Mark Against Cherokee

In some ways, Rodney Williams was surprised the milestone didn’t come earlier.

That he didn’t crack the 1,000-point barrier this past weekend against rival Cherry Hill East, if not a few games earlier than that, was a bit mystifying—as Cherry Hill West’s go-to scorer, he felt like the mark was never that far off.

So maybe it was fitting it took a few more minutes of frustration, sitting at 999 points with a swarming Cherokee defense in front of him, before the powerful junior was finally able to break through Tuesday night.

Trailing a breakaway by teammate Elijah Bey, Williams was there to grab a pass when Bey kicked it back and put it in over a pair of defenders, setting off a brief celebration and a pause for pictures—then it was right back to work trying to push the team to another check in the W column.

Williams would go on to lead the team in scoring in the 59-50 victory, including a fourth quarter where he might as well have set up some furniture at the foul line, going 7-of-11 in the fourth alone after Cherokee resorted to fouling with two minutes left in the game.

Afterward, Williams reflected on what’s been an up-and-down junior year, between injury setbacks in football and a 7-5 start for the basketball team, but said putting 1,000 points behind him bodes well for the rest of the year.

“It’s been a tough season so far,” he said. “I was struggling coming into it, but I just wanted to get it out of the way, so we can do better things as a team.”

While Williams led all scorers on the afternoon, he had a couple of teammates right behind him—Will Plenty and Sean Mullarkey each had 13—and Williams said it doesn’t matter how many points he scores, so long as the team keeps rolling by 10 or 20 points.

“Coach told me my role was stepping down in scoring, because we had a lot of players stepping up...I’ll take that any day,” Williams said.

With the pressure off his shoulders as far as the 1,000-point club goes, and the team getting healthy and gelling, Williams said there’s no reason the team can’t go on a tear through the middle and late portion of the season.

“If the defense keeps keying on me, my teammates will just take advantage of it,” he said. “It’s going to open up for everyone else.”

And the team game is the only thing that matters to Williams now—not scoring records, not personal glory. He’s focused on one thing.

“State championship—that’s it,” he said. “Just a state championship.”