With fall boys sports on the out, boys basketball is on the horizon. The 2021-2022 season should be an interesting one. Only three varsity players are returning this season. Vincent White, Dane Costibile, and Jake Clark will be the three to return and lead the team, filling in the vacancies the previous seniors left behind as they went on to college.
A set roster has not been finalized yet. Senior Guard Vincent White said, “right now the roster is kind of up in the air, we got an idea of how it’s going to start but you never know until the season begins.” The “fuzzy” roster should not be a point of concern as the team has not started official mandatory practices yet. Fall sports are wrapping up, and with over a month until their first game against Bound Brook, the boys have over a month to prepare.
The team’s new head coach, Jaren Sina, is an accomplished former NCAA basketball player who had a successful career for the Seton Hall Pirates and George Washington Colonials. He has been accepted into the Bernards Mountaineers family with open arms in with the departure of former head coach Tim Palek who left for Hillsborough High School.
Vincent White says “[Coach Sina] is handling the team well, coach Jaren is a great coach. Jaren is a Somerset County legend, played overseas, and played D1 basketball. It is nice that he is the coach to share his knowledge with us young players.” White believes there is no better teacher than experienced players and Coach Jaren brings exactly that. The Mountaineers can go into this season confident knowing that they have a coach who has been through it before and can make very educated personnel decisions and teach skills previously unknown by these players.
The Mountaineers face Bound Brook as their first opponent of the 2021-22 season and it is a game that should be heavily attended. Last season Bound Brook was the team to beat the Mountaineers in the semi-finals on March 4th, beating them at Bound Brook by only five points (47-42). Bound Brook had also beaten Bernards twice in the regular season in still fairly tight games of 6 (39-33) and 12 (73-61) points. Our season opener will take place on December 17th, 2021, at home, in the lower gym and will be an exciting revenge game for the Mountaineers.
