Paul Marandet directs the offense for Warsaw Saturday night in the semistate at Lafayette Jefferson (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

LAFAYETTE – Paul Marandet walked out of the locker room at the Crawley Center Saturday night for the final time as a Warsaw Tiger.

The star senior guard, in his usual classy and unflappable manner, then put into perspective what it meant to him to wear the orange and black No. 3 jersey throughout his brilliant high school playing career.

“It’s been a ride here at Warsaw,” said Marandet outside the Warsaw locker room. “It’s tough. Knowing that we could beat that team, that’s probably the toughest part.”

The No. 5 Tigers saw a stellar season end with a 40-37 loss to No. 4 McCutcheon in a Class 4-A semistate game at Lafayette Jefferson High School. The Mavericks earn a spot in the state championship game next Saturday night in Indianapolis versus No. 1 New Albany, while Warsaw sees the season end at 25-2.

Marandet, the 6-0 point guard for the Tigers, had some senior season. He helped Warsaw win the most games since the 1996 team finished 25-3, losing to New Albany 82-65 in the state title game. The Tigers started the year by winning their first 20 games, the best start in program history (surpassing the 14-0 start by the 1989-90 team). Warsaw won the Northern Lakes Conference title, the Elkhart Sectional crown and the Michigan City Regional championship. The team advanced to the semistate for the first time since 2010.

“It feels good what we did this season,” said Marandet, a three-year starter for coach Doug Ogle. “The three championships that we were able to win.”

Marandet, who had 55 points in the pair of regional wins a week ago including a career-high 37 in a double-overtime win over South Bend Riley in the semifinals, scored six points Saturday. He led the Tigers with five assists and two steals to go with three rebounds.

“We were too passive tonight and needed to attack them more,” said Marandet, who was scoreless in the first half and finished 1-4 from the field versus the quick and athletic Mavericks. “If I could replay this game, I would be a lot more aggressive.”

The Tigers will sorely miss all three of their senior starters in Marandet, guard Evan Schmidt and forward Riley Rhoades. Schmidt hit two huge back-to-back 3-pointers in the second quarter Saturday night to score six points. Rhoades, a standout receiver, came back from a knee injury suffered during the football season in the fall that cost him the first four games of the season

“It’s a great group,” said Ogle of his senior trio. “We got great leadership from those guys.”

The senior class forged quite a pair of seasons for the Tigers. Warsaw was 18-5 last year and won the NLC title at 7-0. That came after the 2013-14 team was 11-10 overall and 2-5 in the NLC.

Paul Marandet ended a brilliant Warsaw career Saturday night.

Marandet, who has not made a college decision yet, made huge leaps from a year ago. He was second on the team in scoring this season at 13 points-per-game after averaging 5.4 as a junior. He led the Tigers in assists (3.9 per game) and free throw shooting (86 percent) and shot 52 percent from the field. Marandet also averaged 3.8 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game, while leading a defense that ranked second in the state in points-allowed-per-game at just 39.5.

The numbers fail to define just how valuable Marandet, a true coach on the floor, was to this team.  The Tigers will be hard-pressed to replace his leadership, his toughness, his tremendous basketball IQ and his will to win next season. He helped Warsaw go 5-0 in overtime games this season.

Marandet, who played for the final time in front of a huge throng of Tiger Nation fans Saturday night, was asked what he would miss about his career at WCHS.