By Jeff Appelblatt
Manalapan High School was coming off a win, but coach Rick Garretson knew that its rival from Marlboro High School would be a difficult matchup. He also knew his club couldn’t contend with the Mustangs if it was as sloppy as it was in the win a few days prior against Toms River High School North.
The Braves couldn’t expect to win against Marlboro by scoring fewer than 40 points again, either. When they only put up 37, the Mustangs took care of business and sunk Manalapan, 50-37.
Marlboro coach Mike Nausedas taught alongside Garretson for a few years at Manalapan more than a decade ago, but the win was just another win — not that it didn’t feel great coming against one of his team’s top rivals.
“Go into any away game in [the Shore Conference] A North [Division] and pull out a victory, it’s a good win,” Marlboro’s coach said on the Manalapan court after the win. “It’s been many years now [since I taught here]. There are some good people here, some good friends, but any A North win is an A North win.”
Garretson, who has taught at Manalapan for 26 years, doesn’t let any former friendships get in the way of his coaching either.
“[Nausedas] taught here for a couple of years. He’s a nice guy [and] a good coach,” Garretson said before the game.
The coach, however, dismissed caring any more about the game because of who was on the other sideline.
“As you get older, like me, you know a lot of people,” he said.
Marlboro treated the game with the Braves the same way as all of its opponents this year. And like the majority of its games, Marlboro (6-2) pulled out a win.
Manalapan’s coach knew who his team needed to watch out for the most on defense, but there was nothing his team could do to keep Dylan Kaufman and Ryan LaRocca quiet. The two combined for 29 points.
“We knew who their shooters were from the perimeter, so we tried to do a good job getting out on them. And then we tried to bottleneck the paint and not give them a good high-low open look,” Garretson said, blaming the biggest difference in the game on taking care of the ball. “If we limited our turnovers, we would have done a lot better.”
The 6-foot-4 Kaufman, who is only a sophomore, has already played a tremendous role on the inside for Marlboro, and Manalapan would have liked to have its big man, Matan Zucker, on the court to help quiet him. Zucker has been out since the second game of the year, when he sprained an ankle against Freehold High School.
“[Zucker] gives us more size. He’s our biggest presence on the court,” Garretson said, thinking how different the 13-point loss may have gone if the Braves had the junior on the court. “[Marlboro] is a big team, but I thought we did a pretty good job on the boards. I thought we boxed out real well.”
Despite losing six of eight games, Garretson remains optimistic.
“[With a 2-6 record], know what we do? We get back in the room tomorrow and get back to work,” the coach said. “We just have to get back to work, keep our [heads] up and get better everyday.”
Manalapan was scheduled to face Middletown High School South (2-6) Jan. 7, but the snow postponed that matchup. The Braves were still slated to play in Manalapan Jan. 10 against Neptune High School (3-3). Neptune managed to get its game in Jan. 7, when it defeated Middletown High School North, 54-46.
Marlboro, meanwhile, may have wished it didn’t get its game in Jan. 7 against Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School. Despite 13 points and 12 rebounds from Kaufman and a team-leading 14 points from Daniel Weiss, the Bulldogs (7-0) handed the Mustangs their second loss of the year, 49-44. Scoring just wasn’t easy for Marlboro with Tyler Pierson on the floor. The Rumson-Fair Haven senior swatted six Marlboro shot attempts.
“[Rumson has] a great coach, great school [and a] great culture,” Nausedas said before the game.
Rumson-Fair Haven has a team that still hasn’t been beaten, but Marlboro put that loss in the past and moved on to face A North foe Freehold High School (1-8) June 10 in Marlboro.
“It’s game by game right now — A North,” Nausedas said, acknowledging that every division game is a big one, no matter which team his own is going up against.
