Parsippany Boys Basketball Young and Scrappy

It’s high school hoops season, and the boys basketball team at Parsippany High School is looking for its next stars to step up in head coach Byron Hamby’s first season on the job. The team plays an away scrimmage game Monday at 5:40 p.m. against Wayne Valley and starts its season by taking on Madison at home Dec. 16.

OVERVIEW
The Red Hawks will be young this year, having lost seven seniors to graduation. Nonetheless, Coach Hamby stated that his expectations are for his players to be “a young, scrappy group of underclassmen adjusting to being major contributors on the varsity level for the first time in their careers”

LAST SEASON'S RESULTS
Parsippany finished 10-14 overall on the season, falling in the first round of the North II, Group II sectional tournament to Newark Central by a 75-35 margin. However, the Red Hawks did win five straight games to end the regular season.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON

• Kyle Tarabacchia, Forward (Sr.)—Tarabacchia is expected to provide senior leadership on-and-off the court and a presence inside the point for the Red Hawks.
• Corey Wallace, Guard (Jr.)—Wallace returns as one of the only players from the Red Hawks’ 2010-11 backcourt, and will look to parlay that varsity experience into solid play.
• Lionel Chambers, Forward (So.)—Chambers will join Tarabacchia inside the paint, and will look to gain experience this season.

THEY'LL MISS

• Mustapha Haruna—Someone will have to step up to replace Haruna’s 12.1 points per game from last season.
• Michael Ross—Ross, who provided 11.7 points per game in his own right, had some big moments last year for the Red Hawks.
• Peter Gonzalez—Gonzalez’ senior season got cut short, but his leadership will certainly be missed.

THEY SAID IT
“The challenge I have faced is learning the personnel and helping most of the players on the team make the adjustment to playing varsity-level basketball. Many of the players on this year’s team either had a limited role on last year’s team or are new to the varsity level altogether, so the quicker our players make the adjustment will have a lot to do with our success. I have addressed these challenges by starting with the basic fundamentals and building our way up from there in practices. It has helped me to see where we are at as a team and individually, and what we need to work on as the season continues.”—Hamby, on the initial challenges of taking over as head coach

2011-12 PARSIPPANY BOYS BASKETBALL ROSTER

Name

Grade

Position

Lionel Chambers

10

Forward

Tyler Cecere

10

Forward

Leonard Lee

10

Guard

Max Burns

11

Guard

Marcus Farrar

11

Guard

Anthony Lonero

11

Guard

Corey Wallace

11

Guard

Sagar Patel

11

Guard

Ahmed Moyeed

12

Forward

Ertan Yavuz

12

Forward

Ricky Zamora

12

Forward

Kyle Tarabacchia

12

Forward

Editor's note: Earlier, through an editor's error, the piece mistakenly stated that Par Hills' first game of the would be an away contest at West Morris Central Friday and that the team had home scrimmage scheduled for Tuesday at 7p.m. Those dates pertain to 's boys varsity basketball team. Patch regrets the error.