Beyond the Scoresheet

March of the Champions

I got phone and e-mail updates from Saturday’s state championship tripleheader, and it sounds like I missed something special (yet again). A record crowd, even if it was for three games, and a new arena created an awesome environment and a day three teams and their fans will never forget, even if none of the games quite lived up to their billing.

I’ve been busy with my new job and whatnot, but I’ll see if I can get around to posting some final thoughts for this season and some historical perspective later this week.

For now, my Top 10

FINAL TOP 10

1. Delbarton (27-1-1)
2. St. Augustine Prep (18-7-2)
3. CBA (19-4-2)
4. Bishop Eustace (15-8-4)
5. Bergen Catholic (12-10-5)
6. Seton Hall Prep (6-10-5)
7. Don Bosco Prep (9-11-5)
8. Kinnelon (24-2-2)
9. Ridge (23-4-3)
10. Randolph (15-5-5)

Where does this upset rank?

Obviously, Monday was a huge day for CVC hockey. Nobody picked CVC teams to go 4-0, and the biggest upset of the day came courtesy of Steinert.

Bill James has been telling me all year his team was underrated, but there really wasn’t much to back it up. The Spartans did so in a big way on Wednesday and in a surprising way, upsetting Fair Lawn 9-7. (Recaps: FL | Ste) I was surprised not so much by the result (remember, Steinert lost 4-3 to Randolph last year in this round) but by the score: 9-7.

Fair Lawn has two of the best public goalies in the state in Dan Ivanir and Collin Lemay and plays a sound system. I thought there was no way that could be the correct score. In 24 games, the Cutters had only allowed more than two goals on six occasions, and never more than four goals (that includes games against Portledge, Ramsey and Northern Highlands). So I was shocked to see a 9-7 score.

Now, to look at a question I was asked last night: Is this the biggest upset in state tournament history?

My short answer is no. But let’s look at some of the biggies and make some comparisons. For the sake of this discussion, I’m only going to consider public tournament games played since 1995. This list ended up being way longer than I thought it would be. I’ll address five of the biggies and Monday’s and leave the rest open to your comments and memories:

2000: Semifinals: (4) Summit 3, (1) Brick Twp. 2 - I could go in any order with most of the others, but this is and will always be No. 1 for me. Consider that, entering this game, Brick Township had won 19 consecutive public state tournament games, including 10 of its last 11 by a margin of at least five goals. The Green Dragons had won the public state title in 96, 97, 98 and 99 and won the overall championship in 97. It was a Gordon Conference team that was, in all actuality, a private school team that dominated public minnows without even thinking about it. I can’t tell you how shocking this was for the whole state. To be there at Mennen and watch Summit, its fans and just about everybody else in the state except Brick go berserk was amazing. Hands-down, the most surprising upset.
2003: First Round: (25) Fair Lawn 2, (8) Montclair 1 - I picked this one to represent the three upsets that happened in the same round that year. The Nos. 23, 24 and 25 seeds ALL won their first round games. (23 was Middletown South, 24 was Rumson-Fair Haven, as you can see below), and Fair Lawn wound up in the quarterfinals. Lowest seed ever to get that far.
1998: Quarterfinals: (12) Toms River East 3, (4) Toms River North 2, OT - I don’t know or remember a lot about this one, since I was pretty Morris County-centric at the time, but it sure was an emotional win. I remember watching TRE come to Mennen and get hammered by Brick, but just getting there, and beating TRN in the process, was a huge deal.
2007: Round of 16: (17) Steinert 9, (1) Fair Lawn 7 - A huge surprise because it is the earliest a No. 1 seed has ever lost in the public tournament and because Fair Lawn was so good defensively. Nobody had really seen Steinert step out of South and Central Jersey until the state tournament, but the Spartans pulled it off with back-to-back shorthanded goals in the third period to break a 6-6 tie.
2005: Quarterfinals: (7) Middletown South 4, (2) Ridge 3 - This was one of those seriously legit Ridge teams that failed to win the public state title that continues to elude the Red Devils. South had lost to Bayonne and finished behind Middletown North, so the Eagles weren’t expected to do much. Ridge was riding a long win streak (can’t remember how long), and it was a big surprise.
2000: Round of 16: (14) Ridgewood 3, (3) Montclair 2, OT - I didn’t see this game, but Ridgewood upset TRN in the next round to reach the semifinals at Mennen, where I saw the Maroons lose to Dave Bodson and Bayonne. This was an absolute shocker, because Montclair was still a power and Ridgewood was a nobody.

Best of the rest, chronologically:
1996: Round of 16: (14) Roxbury 4, (3) Bayonne 3, OT
1996: Round of 16: (12) West Essex 2, (5) Clifton 1, OT
1997: First Round: (20) Old Bridge 2, (13) West Essex 1
1997: Round of 16: (12) Hightstown 4, (5) Roxbury 3, OT - Joel Kulina, anybody?
1997: Semifinals: (6) Brick Memorial 7, (2) Bayonne 6 - Unbelievable game with Kiernan in goal for BM.
2000: First Round: (22) Livingston 4, (11) Hopewell Valley 2
2001: Round of 16: (21) Chatham 2, (5) Paramus 1, OT - At-large Cougars reached the quarterfinals.
2001: Semifinals: (6) Clifton 3, (2) Brick Township 1 - Beating Brick was still a huge deal.
2001: Semifinals: (4) Bayonne 2, (1) Toms River North 0 - Year of the Upset, and TRN was legit.
2002: Round of 16: (19) Brick Memorial 3, (3) Clifton 2
2002: Round of 16: (13) Paramus 3, (4) Bayonne 2
2003: First Round: (23) Middletown South 8, (10) Paramus 3
2003: First Round: (24) Rumson-Fair Haven 4, (9) Hopewell Valley 3, OT
2003: Quarterfinals: (7) Brick Memorial 3, (2) Brick Township 2 - Brick as defending champ again, AND a rivalry.
2004: First Round: (22) Fair Lawn 3, (11) Chatham 1
2005: Round of 16: (22) Tenafly 3, (6) Bayonne 3, OT (Ten 4-3 SO)
2006: Round of 16: (13) Clifton 3, (4) Chatham 2

Chime in here with your thoughts on these games or other memorable public state tournament upsets.

Big Wednesday

Lot of action tonight. Let’s see if we can put it in historical context.

MKA 6, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 6
Red Bank Catholic 6, Morris Knolls 5

Okay, not a lot to write home about there. Good tune-up for RBC and Knolls.

Pingry 9, Paul VI 0 - Big Blue win just their second state game in the last eight years, beating Paul VI in its first state tournament appearance ever.
Gloucester Catholic 2, Pope John 1 - First state win in team history for Gloucester, and the winning goal came with just three minutes remaining.
Brick 10, Toms River South 1 - Green Dragons’ first actual win (not counting shootouts) in the state tournament since 2003.
Johnson 9, Robbinsville 3 - Johnson also had not won a state game since 2003 and will now aim for a true first - the team has never won two games in the state tournament. Robbinsville was making its first appearance in the state tournament.
Wall 3, Passaic Valley 2, OT - The Crimson Knights won a preliminary game for the third straight year. They have never won two state tournament games. PV is 0-3 in its state tournament history. Also the first overtime game of this year’s tournaments. There were 12 last year.
St. Joseph Metuchen 4, DePaul Catholic 1 - Can’t come up with too much for this one. DPC dropped to 0-2 in the state tournament all time, while St. Joseph Metuchen has not earned consecutive state tournament wins in the modern (1995) era.

PDS 1, Hun 0
Hopewell Valley 4, WWPN 3

PDS, playing in the Mercer County Tournament for the first time in a good while, will face Hopewell Valley in the final. The Bulldogs have not reached the final since 1999. In 22 years of MCT history, 11.5 titles have been won by private schools and 10.5 by publics … can Hopewell even the score for the publics?

Snow day!

Apparently it snowed a bit up there. I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I have heard that pretty much everything has been postponed.

Mennen Cup semifinals - Saturday, 4:15 (MK-MB) and 9:00 (Pin-Ran). Mennen Cup finals will be Monday at 7 p.m.

Shore Conference finals - Monday at 6:15 (Shore B / Dowd) and 8:30 (Shore A / Handchen)

NBIAL final & third place - Tuesday at 7 (Final) and 9 (Third Place)

There’s also a hot rumor going around that today’s NJIHL games at South Mountain have been moved to Monday.

Thanks to Nancy Hughes, Brian Wilkinson, Roger Jones and others for keeping me in the loop.

Dramatic start to cup week

One of the best weeks of the season, the week of the various ice cups, kicked off with a bang Monday, as six of the 25 scheduled playoff games went to overtime. Cranford, Lakeland, Hunterdon Central, Monsignor Donovan and Montclair Kimberley all won overtime contests to advance to their respective semifinals. All this after Tenafly’s OT win last night.
The Gordon Cup quarterfinals went mostly as planned, with easy wins for this year’s big three of Delbarton, CBA and St. Augustine Prep, while Bergen Catholic won on the road at Bishop Eustace to round out the semifinals.

In the Central Red, Ridge stands out as the lone public school competing with St. Joseph Metuchen, Gloucester Catholic and MKA for the McInnis Cup title.

Cranford and Hunterdon Central pulled out overtime wins over Summit and Johnson, respectively, in closely contested games between local rivals. Watchung Hills and Paul VI also reached the Van Cott Cup semifinals.

Ramapo pulled off an upset with a 4-1 win over Indian Hills in NBIAL Cup play, joining the big three of Fair Lawn, Ramsey and Northern Highlands in Wednesday’s semifinals. You can check out all the NBIAL cup action here.
Brick beat rival Brick Memorial 5-1 in a game surprising not so much for the result as the score; the teams tied 3-3 a week ago, and I did not expect either team to win by four. In the other Shore A first-round game, Wall took heavy favorite Monsignor Donovan to overtime before losing 6-5. Shore B favorite Rumson-Fair Haven advanced to the final with a 6-2 win over Red Bank Regional. Bob Badders has Shore coverage here.
The seeding meeting for the state tournaments is Wednesday afternoon. Can’t wait to see what the public split tourney brings us. Additionally, Wednesday will have a ton of semifinal games that ought to be entertaining.

Shore seeds

The Shore Conference does things its own way, and I think it worked out pretty well in this case. I have the criteria for seeding in the Shore A and Shore B tournaments … lo and behold, the Shore counted all 17 or 19 league games. Unbelievable. After the number kept getting downgraded all year, from all Shore games to all Shore A or Shore B games to division games only, they ended up using the whole lot.

According to tournament director Brian Wilkinson, the criteria were:

1. Shore Conference record (all games)
2. head to head
3. common opponents (they’re all common opponents, so I’m not sure how this would work)

Shore A
1. St. John Vianney 15-0-2 (32 pts)
2. Red Bank Catholic 14-1-2 (30 pts)
3. Monsignor Donovan 14-2-1 (29 pts)
4. Brick Memorial 10-5-2 (22 pts)
5. Brick Township 10-5-2 (22 pts)
6. Wall 8-7-2 (18 pts)
————————–
7. Middletown North 8-8-1 (17 pts)
8. Toms River East 7-10-1 (15 pts)
9. Toms River North 5-12-0 (10 pts)
10. Middletown South 1-15-1 (3 pts)

Shore B
1. Rumson-Fair Haven 12-5-2 (26 pts)
2. Toms River South 10-8-1 (21 pts)
3. Manasquan 9-8-2 (20 pts)
4. Red Bank Regional 8-8-3 (19 pts)
—————————–
5. Jackson Memorial 7-9-3 (17 pts)
6. Point Pleasant 6-12-1 (13 pts)
7. Southern Regional 4-15-0 (8 pts)
8. St. Rose 0-19-0 (0 pts)

The most interesting note is that Rumson-Fair Haven would have finished third in Shore B North if only division games were counted but won Shore B handily (five points) when using the overall method. It is important to note that the schedule was not balanced - A teams played two games against division opponents, while all crossover games were aligned geographically. The Bricks, therefore, had a slight advantage over Middletown North and Wall by having to face less private schools, and Shore A south teams probably had a slight advantage as well.

The criteria also meant that Wall got in ahead of Middletown North by a single point, while North was one point ahead in the division-only standings. I think the Lions might be pretty peeved by that. Next year, this criteria should be publicized and codified in November, if not earlier, so teams know what they’re dealing with.
Still haven’t heard word on names for the cups.

Projecting seeds, Part III

Public B got tough near the end, but the top is certainly mouth-watering. Wouldn’t things be fun if we had one tournament? Maybe we’ll get to that scenario later. For now, here are my Public B projections:

Continue reading Projecting seeds, Part III…