Mikey Williams, a 6-foot, 3-inch guard heralded as one of the outstanding ninth grade players in the country, scored 50 points in one game recently as the San Diego Section basketball season got under way.
But the San Ysidro freshman can’t claim family bragging rights.
That’s because Mikey’s father, Mahlon Williams, a three-year star at Sweetwater for coaches Gary Zarecky and David Ybarra from 1983-86, scored 51 points in a game.
On January 14, 1986, Williams connected on 22 of 33 shots from the field and added seven free throws in an 86-70 victory over Marian, as present day Mater Dei Catholic was then known.
Mahlon was the San Diego Section’s third leading scorer in ’85-’86 with 543 points and a 22.6 average, trailing only Poway’s Jud Buechler (23.6) and Dominick Johnson (23.4).
Mikey Williams scored 143 points in his first three games: 41 in his debut, a 98-45 win over El Cajon Valley, followed by 50 in an 85-77 victory against Mission Bay in the host Montgomery, San Diego Tip-Off event, and 29 in an 89-53 win over San Bernardino in the opening game of the Corona Centennial Battle Zone Tournament.
A sharp rise in the level of competition caught up with the Cougars in the second round at Corona.
Williams was held to 14 points in an 84-48 loss to the host team and had 10 in a 56-44 defeat by Riverside Hillcrest. Williams scored 31 in the final Battle Zone game but San Ysidro fell to Foothills Christian, 100-84.
Longtime area coach Terry Tucker has built a solid program at the school near the U.S.-Mexico border after having success at Crawford, where Tucker coached Tyrone Shelley, who set the San Diego Section record with 76 points in a 2005-06 season game against a team from Canada.
SIERRA CANYON TOO MUCH
Montgomery coach Ed Martin has coaxed nationally prominent Chatsworth Sierra Canyon to come south the last two seasons, bringing high profile sons of NBA stars Dwayne Wade and Lebron James, among others, and taken San Diego Section teams to the woodshed.
St. Augustine was an 86-47 loser to the northwest San Fernando Valley squad last season. The Saints got a little closer this year, 75-54.
Cathedral actually led the Trailblazers, 12-1, in the early going of the Montgomery tournament and trailed only 27-24 at halftime before bowing, 59-46.
