Finally, a Top 20 poll

December 30, 2006 on 1:20 am | In Uncategorized | 14 Comments

so I’m headed out of town for the weekend and may or may not have internet access. So you might be without a central location for scores until January 3. Tough. Please keep sending me emails, however. To make up for the loss, I decided to publish a Top 20. This is probably a misguided decision, given that I have only seen two games, but I’m doing it anyway.

In Friday action, West Milford bombed Wayne Hills 9-1 behind Andrew Atieh’s MVP-worthy performance to take the Passaic County Tournament title. No offense to Dan Rosen, but this didn’t surprise me all that much. Other than the Lakeland game, Wayne Hills has not shown much White-Division-caliber quality this year. Of course, it’s easy for me to write that now. Takes a bigger man than me (Dan, in this case) to go out on a limb and then admit when he’s wrong. That Northern White is going to be a blast, by the way, with the top four (West Milford, Lakeland, Glen Rock, Nutley) all duking it out to see who replaces Bayonne in the Red Division next year.

Tenafly beat Park Regional in a shootout to win the Mackay Park Tournament. Gideon Porter scored the only goal of the whole darn shootout. Y’all need to start practicing those. Hats off to goalies Nick Vanderlinden (Tenafly) and Anthony White (Regional) for a job well done in the shootout. But there’s something about Mackay Park that lends itself to shootouts and overtimes. Third time in the last five years this tourney has been decided in OT or a shootout. And the game I went saw there in last year’s state tournament went to OT.

St. Rose goalie Eric Micallef recorded his 1,000th save Friday night in an 8-0 loss to Red Bank Regional. It’s been a rough run for Micallef and the Purple Roses; their career record now stands at 0-24. Maybe we can schedule a game for them with Parsippany (and call it a tournament so one team had to at least win a shootout) … I’d even pay for the ice time if I had any money. Demarest might want to get in on that, too.

Bishop Eustace apparently did not learn from last year’s loss to Ramsey; an NBIAL team with a similar name, Ramapo, went down to Pennsauken and did it again, beating the Crusaders 3-0. Northern Highlands, meanwhile, remains the team to beat in the NBIAL.

Finally, Notre Dame bombed Red Bank Catholic 8-3. I know competitive scores are sketchy, but check out some of the teams RBC has played close with. Makes you think Notre Dame could be for real. I almost slid them into my top 10, but I heeded the advice of sportswriters past: never trust a CVC school in December! So we’ll see how the Irish do against Eustace and St. Augie before we boost them that high. With that in mind, check out the rankings:

1. Delbarton (6-0-1, 4-0 Gordon) – Duh.
2. Seton Hall Prep (6-1, 5-1 Gordon) – Big week ahead.
3. CBA (5-2-1, 3-2-1 Gordon) – Consider this 3a …
4. St. Peter’s Prep (8-2, 4-2 Gordon) – … and this 3b.
5. Ridge (7-0, 3-0 Central Red) – Please, please bring back the championship game.
6. St. Augustine Prep (5-0, 4-0 Southern Red) – Somebody charter them a jet.
7. Chatham (7-0-1, 4-0-1 MCSSIHL Mennen) – Harvey’s going to hate this.
8. Randolph (5-2-1, 4-1 MCSSIHL Mennen) – As will Rich McLaughlin.
9. Don Bosco Prep (1-3-1, 1-3 Gordon) – Can you rebuild in less than one year?
10. Pope John (4-2-2, 3-2-1 Gordon) – Lost to Bosco.
11. Notre Dame (8-0, 6-0 CVC Colonial) – Told you they almost made it.
12. Pingry (7-1, 2-0 MCSSIHL Halvorsen) – Hah. Who thought Mags could pull this off?
13. Bridgewater-Raritan (5-2-1, 2-1-1 Central Red) – Up, down, up, down, up, down.
14. Steinert (5-1, 4-1 CVC Colonial) – How ’bout that CVC?
15. Hopewell Valley (7-1-1, 4-1-1 CVC Colonial) – Bulldogs have CVC’s best win.
16. Montgomery (3-3-2, 1-1-2 Central Red) – Suddenly an average team.
17. Northern Highlands (7-0-2, 6-0-2 NBIAL) – Let’s see how long it lasts.
18. Ramapo (6-0-2, 5-0-2 NBIAL) – Great road win Friday.
19. Bergen Catholic (1-5, 1-5 Gordon) – If they don’t beat Beard, they’re out.
20. Paramus Catholic (6-0, 6-0 Northern Red) – True or false: Halvorsen > Northern Red?

 
Surprisingly being considered:
Kinnelon, Watchung Hills, Monsignor Donovan, Gloucester Catholic

Surprisingly not there:
Morris Knolls, Morristown-Beard, Bishop Eustace, Hillsborough

14 Comments

  1. mka…after their big win over pc?

    Comment by pepe — 31 December 2006 #

  2. youve got to be kidding me, boro plays ridge to 12 seconds left, pingry to overtime???!!!! you know absolutely nothing considering u have montgomery ranked WOW

    Comment by Mike Barbasinger — 31 December 2006 #

  3. These rankings are terrible. How is bosco and pope john in the top 10. I think some of the nbial teams like nh and po should be in the top 10. They shouldnt be ranked that low

    Comment by t6 — 1 January 2007 #

  4. The new starts out with one of the funniest (and dead on) comments :

    Harvey and Mclaughlin hating the rankings…..

    All the best this to you this New Year and as always thanks for taking the time to continue your support of NJHS Hockey…

    Comment by Kim Becker — 2 January 2007 #

  5. I am truly surprised that Gloucester Catholic is being considered for a top 20 ranking! I like those kids and I’m an alumni, so I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth…but…I really have to wonder why you’d put the Rams into consideration but not Bishop Eustace. When I look at their records, especially head to head, Eustace should clearly be given a higher ranking. What do you base this decision on ? No one questions your committment, but GCHS will be fortunate to win 4 games this season…was there a typo in this column?

    Comment by Mark Lynch — 2 January 2007 #

  6. wow get off yardleys back. You make a website and make your own rankings and do all the work he does for free.

    Comment by John LyDiMarco — 3 January 2007 #

  7. good overall rankings, just dont ya think spp should be #2 considering they beat shp

    Comment by m9 — 3 January 2007 #

  8. t6 your comments are terrible. Here’s why PJ and DBP belong and your NBIAL teams do not.

    Why they belong: PJ has played two legit top 10 teams to a tie (Randolph and CBA). Their only losses are to SHP and Bosco. Bosco, by beating PJ picks up credibility from PJ’s ties.

    Why NBIAL doesn’t: Who have they played? I mean C’MON! They have each tied with mediocre NBIAL teams like IH and FL and couldn’t even beat each other. The only remotely quality win between the two is PO’s win over BE, who isn’t even in the Top 20.

    PO will get a chance to prove themselves against Ridge, PJ and SPP in February. Let’s see them get past Knolls later this month first, though. And NH will have a good test against Chatham in 2 weeks. Come back again with your argument later this month after the Chatham and Knolls results are in.

    Comment by KC — 4 January 2007 #

  9. SHP is so frickin overrated, they lost to st. peters and got shut out, c’mon, the only reason why spp lost to cba is because kondler played amazing, other than that it was a bad day for spp. and y are they 4th, they have 2 pts against shp while cba in 2 games only has 1pt in a tie?

    Comment by me — 5 January 2007 #

  10. you consider gc and mon don? while eustce has beat both of those teams and lost only 4-2 (empty net) to sa and 3-2 to nd

    Comment by me — 5 January 2007 #

  11. CBA is pretty overrated they shouldnt not be in front of SPP and also i think SA shoulnd be ahead of Ridge

    Comment by D3 — 6 January 2007 #

  12. Hey guys, don’t get so excited that there are rankings and forget to read the write-up that precedes them. John himself makes the point that he has seen only two games live so far this year, and that these rankings are thrown together to appease us since he will not be updating for a bit. Also, John should never be critiqued for his rankings, as he has been doing it for long enough now that he, despite being over a thousand miles away from the nearest NJ high school hockey arena, has been able to give us a generally unbiased (there is the tendency towards Delby, but he will be the first to admit this) pecking order. He does not, and has not, rank teams based solely on record, but is one of the few who take strength of schedule into account. So, while the NBIAL teams might be having great years, they will still most likely lose to Gordon Conference teams on a consistent basis. So, do not bash the guy for giving us something that we all look forward to. Thanks for all the years so far John, and I hope you keep us informed for the next decade too.

    Comment by Red — 9 January 2007 #

  13. what about mka?

    a win over paramus catholic should definetley be considered. and their record is great.

    Comment by emily — 11 January 2007 #

  14. Emily, if you’d look at John’s Top 20, you’d see that he has Paramus Catholic ranked 20th with a 6-0 record. Clearly the MKA-PC game was not factored into this poll. I do, however, think that MKA will make an appearance in John’s next Top 20 poll (which I’m hoping we’ll see sometime soon), barring a run of bad play, which would include dropping tomorrow night’s tilt to MHS, which should be a great game to watch.

    Comment by Red — 12 January 2007 #

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