Torrence brings torrent of threes

Published 8:11 pm Saturday, February 20, 2016

Nansemond River High School’s boys’ basketball team ended a difficult 2015-16 regular season with a win, in part because it had some seniors who made sure the Warriors shined that night.

Nansemond River High School senior guard Torrence Williams made an important impact for the Warriors from the perimeter this season, and his heroics in the regular season finale helped make him the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week. (Melissa Glover photo)

Nansemond River High School senior guard Torrence Williams made an important impact for the Warriors from the perimeter this season, and his heroics in the regular season finale helped make him the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week. (Melissa Glover photo)

Senior guard Josh Covington has been a stalwart leader for Nansemond River, but he had some help this season in the form of senior guard Torrence Williams, the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

Williams took the lead in the Warriors’ 60-59 Senior Night comeback home win over conference foe Warwick High School on Feb. 11, scoring a career-high 21 points.

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Fifteen of those points came in the second half, including two on a running one-hander in the lane with 12 seconds remaining that won the game for Nansemond River, helping it conclude the regular season on a high note.

“I felt like I played pretty good overall,” Williams said. “I can always do a little bit better, but I feel like I played good.”

His 21 points came on 7-for-15 shooting from the floor, including 5-for-10 shooting from three-point range.

“Almost every bucket he hit was a crucial time for us and especially on our comeback,” Warriors coach Ed Young said. “No question that we needed his outside shooting, as we did all year, and I’m just glad that he was able to deliver.”

Having played in 19 games this season, Williams averaged 10.5 points per game, shooting 45 percent from the floor, including 42 percent from beyond the arc, “which is pretty good,” Young said.

“He’s our best outside shooter,” the coach noted. “He played in our program as a (junior varsity) player, and we knew that outside shooting was his strength.”

Young and his staff looked at Williams as someone who could be a zone-buster and mostly employed him as a sixth man, relying upon him to provide instant offense off the bench.

“But he averaged 24 minutes a game, so he had starter minutes,” Young said. “He was in there at crucial times, obviously.”

Williams, sharing what he thought he was able to bring to the Warriors, said, “I gave them the spark on offense by just creating excitement from threes and helping score with the other shooting guard, Josh Covington.”

Williams is in his fifth year of playing organized hoops, which includes about two years of Amateur Athletic Union ball.

It remains to be seen if he will play college basketball, but he has gained the confidence of his coach.

“Can he play Division III?” Young said. “In my estimation, he can,” and the coach added, “I think there’s teams that could use him, and they’re not recruiting him.”

But the 5-foot-8-inch to 5-foot-9-inch Williams is currently part of a national competition that could raise his profile with college scouts.

He was one of 16 players chosen as candidates to compete in a three-point contest that will air on national television during Final Four weekend.

To get to Houston, Texas for the competition, he must make it through the multi-round American Family Insurance “#DreamFearlessly Fan Vote,” in which fans visit highschoolslam.com/mens/3pt and vote once a day for their favorite shooter in a bracket-style competition.

Williams made it through the first round, and as of this writing, leads senior guard Triston Wells of St. Anne-Pacelli Catholic School in Georgia during the quarterfinals. Voting for the quarterfinal round closes on Wednesday at 12:59 p.m.

The American Family Insurance High School Slam Dunk & 3-Point Championships will air on CBS at 3:30 p.m. April 3.