LAWRENCE: Tarrant reflects on 15-win season

By Bob Nuse, The Packet Group
   It wasn’t the ending that Pat Tarrant had hoped for, but the journey to get there was a pretty good one.
   The Lawrence High boys basketball team was eliminated from the Central Jersey Group III tournament with a 75-61 loss to Neptune in its tournament opener last Thursday. Considering the deck stacked against the Cardinals heading into the game, it was a very good showing against the team that went on to win the sectional title.
   ”Coming from where we were last year, it was a great season for us,” said Tarrant, whose team finished 15-8 after going 4-17 last year. “We got off to a good start. We played a lot of close games and we played a lot of exciting games. We had a little bit of bad luck at the end of the year with kids being sick and missing, but overall it was a good year with the kids.”
   Against Neptune, the Cardinals simply ran into a team with too many weapons. Lawrence led by two late in the third quarter before the Scarlet Fliers went on a 12-0 run to take control of the game.
   ”We played well most of the game at Neptune,” Tarrant said. “They changed their defense and we had a couple of turnovers and they beat us up on the boards. They played us tough and all of a sudden they had a 10-point lead pretty quickly.”
   Nick Brackett led the Cardinals with 23 points, while seniors Terrence Bailey and Corey Thomas closed out their careers with 17 and 14 points, respectively.
   ”It was a very nice year for us,” Tarrant said. “It was a real good group of guys we had this year.”
   Bailey, Thomas and Junior Austin will leave the program knowing they helped take a giant lead forward as seniors.
   ”Those three will not be easy to replace,” Tarrant said. “They’re all looking to continue playing next year at some level. Terrence is looking into some fifth-year options. Corey would like to stay local or maybe try junior college. And the same with Junior.”
   As far as next year, a solid nucleus returns led by returning starters Brackett and Brandon Gowton.
   ”We have two starters back and two guys who played a lot off the bench, Paul Grant and Chris Coyle,” Tarrant said. “We’ll see how things work out in the summer. We have some guys on the freshman and JV team that could come in and help us. We’re probably going to have to play a different style. We’ll be more of a set offense type of a team.”
   Tarrant would have loved a shot at Neptune with his team at full strength. While he had his whole team back after several had missed time with illness, they weren’t at their best.
   ”Because we had so many guys out sick, we had not really practiced that much together,” Tarrant said. “And then we had that snow day where we didn’t practice. So we really only had two practices leading up to the game.
   ”But our guys really came to play. I was proud of them and the effort they put in. This team really had a great year for us.”