Projecting seeds, Part III

February 14, 2008 on 2:09 am | In analysis | 11 Comments

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:

1. Ramsey – Beat Northern Highlands twice AND finishes ahead in the standings. ‘Nough said.
2. Northern Highlands – Toughest non-league schedule around. I gave them the edge over Kinnelon based on a favorable result over Randolph, given the teams just tied. Wouldn’t kill me to see Nos. 2 and 3 reversed.
3. Kinnelon – Lost the top seed with that tie against Northern Highlands Monday.
4. Jefferson – Beat Chatham, Glen Rock, Lakeland, Manasquan.
5. West Essex* – Beat Chatham, Glen Rock. Loss to Ramapo in December tourney could keep them out. I still can’t figure out what the heck happened in that tournament, but Wessex played a tougher schedule than Ramapo.
6. Hopewell Valley – Outscored just 3-2 by Notre Dame in two games; ND beat Paramus Catholic.
7. Chatham – Beat Cranford, Knolls, Pequannock but lost to Summit and West Essex.
8. Cranford – Central White runner-up is pretty legit.
9. Glen Rock – Lost to Northern Highlands, Jefferson, Pequannock, West Essex.
10. Johnson – Beat Summit, Westfield head to head and split with Watchung Hills.
11. Summit – Beat Chatham head to head; very tough division.
12. Indian Hills – Could have been higher but only good non-league win is Wall.
13. Wall – Another diverse schedule. This is where it got really hard. I give them credit for the Shore A schedule despite a December loss to RFH.
14. Rumson-Fair Haven – They’re ahead of RBR in the standings, so they’re ahead in the seedings.
15. Lakeland – Split with Paramus, beat Wayne Valley.
16. Red Bank Regional – Tied Wall but just lost to Jackson Memorial.
17. Sparta – Went 2-0 vs. Nutley but lost season series with Lakeland.
18. WWPN – This is a matchup thing to some extent, but WWPN should still win CVC Valley.
19. Robbinsville – Another team that beat Bayonne. Don’t take these guys too lightly.
20. Lawrence – Alternating teams at this point. Point Pleasant is best win.
21. Montville – Beat Vernon but lost to Mountain Lakes, Nutley, Sparta.
22. Passaic Valley – Beat Wayne Valley and Bayonne but lost to Lakeland.
23. Bernards – Another all-Central matchup, but Bernards didn’t beat anybody good this year.
24. Governor Livingston – This was a toss-up to not be that last seed.
25. Dumont – Sorry.

*projected at-large spot. Ramapo was a close runner-up and could still get it. Ramapo should be seeded behind Indian Hills, however, which is why I put West Essex in.
Nos. 5-12 and the bottom half of Public B was hella hard – at the bottom, nobody had played each other because the darn Blue Divisions were so large, so I had no idea how to mesh the Central and Northern Blue with the CVC and Shore B teams. In the end, I let matchups determine a few of these, because I hate when teams from the same league have to play early in the postseason.

11 Comments

  1. What amazes me is that the NJSIAA has changed the hockey format over the last 10 years, but has yet to find a system that really works. This years format with the public ‘A’ and public ‘B’ again doesn’t make much sense to me. Reality is, the clubs that are successful have programs in place to allow them to be successful. Anyone want to know why Randolph HS is consistently at the top year after year? They have a youth program directly involved in producing players that are going to play for the HS down the road. This is the same system that Montclair HS had in place in their heyday until the Montclair Blues left Clary Anderson Arena. These, however, still don’t even compare with the non-publics. Many of those coaches have the players locked in with youth clubs before they even reach HS as well.

    When it comes down to it, the NJSIAA really needs to classify the teams at 3 or 4 different levels OVERALL. No public… No Parochial…(even though this system would still ‘technically’ end up doing this in itself). When you look at it, its practically already done with the divisions as ‘RED’, ‘WHITE’, and ‘BLUE’. I think this is one of maybe one or two ways that things work out to be even close to competive. Looking at both the public and non public sides, how fun is it for a ‘BLUE’ level team to make the state playoffs just to get blown away in the first round. I feel bad for a school like DePaul that has to play the first round of the non-public round, knowing that being 10 goaled awaits them.

    If not this, then the system of ‘automatically’ getting in based on a .500 record should be changed. The system could also change, using a ranking system. How many red division teams that are close to .500 would likely blow out a ‘blue’ division team, and are more competitive? Again, this likely alludes to the fact that the brackets should be skill based, rather than enrollment based.

    Comment by Joe — 14 February 2008 #

  2. Not arguing with your seedings, but for #6, HV you state they were outscored 2 to 1 by ND. The first game was a 2-2 tie, and the second a 1-0 decision. Not sure what you mean by the comment?

    JY: Fixed it, thanks.

    Comment by jp — 14 February 2008 #

  3. NJSIAA’s move to split the state tournament in 1/2 this year to allow smaller schools a chance to win it all seems particularly silly now that we have rached the point of projecting A and B seedings.

    Just look at the top of this so called “B” list. HV beat Randolph, an A school, and Kinnelon has been ranked by many through out the year as the best A or B school beating Ridge. Then you have Ramsey at the top of the list who beat HV twice. Even number 7 Chatham has had some big games . They beat Knolls and tied Randolph. Jefferson is a very competitive team as well.

    So in effect you have at least 4 or 5 schools hear that could arguably win a state title against A schools.

    At the bottom of this list you have weaker teams who still won’t stand a chance of winning a state championship given the powers on top.

    Has the NJIAAs acheived their objective? I guess so in that they have forced a B champion. But clearly, those at the top whould have been able to go toe to toe with the larger schools so why split it up?

    Comment by Sam — 14 February 2008 #

  4. Kinda disagree with a lot of the rankings once you get to 15 or lower. Lawrence lost to Rville and WWPS yet ranked higher than Rville who beat Lawrence and WPPS? Have seen Lakeland and Sparta and WWPN would roll over either by 2-4 goals. HV is a little low at #6. Rville is 5-1 vs “white” level teams and gets no repsect.
    Respectfully submitted.
    Thanx for all thew work you do for HS hockey.

    JY: Right you are, missed that Robbinsville-Lawrence result. That’s why we do this. Seedings have been updated.

    Comment by Net — 14 February 2008 #

  5. If you want West Essex in that’s fine…but number 5 in public B!!! That’s crazy. If they were really the 5th best team in public B they wouldn’t have to schedule teams like Old Tappan, Wayne Hills, and Mt. Olive. Those are some really tough independent games…

    Comment by john — 14 February 2008 #

  6. Kinnelon’s been the top seed virtually ALL year…they lose to the defending state champs (their only loss) and TIE Northern Highlands (without their rookie of the year defenseman and starting goalie) in one week and suddenly they drop 2 seeds. It doesn’t surprise me that no one has any respect for or confidence in Kinnelon.

    They didn’t LOSE, they TIED. Kinnelon has beaten Knolls, Pingry, RIDGE and tied Mo Beard…Ramsey has beaten Northern Highlands and that’s it. Not to mention ties to Paramus Catholic and OLD TAPPAN.

    NOT ‘nough said.
    Explain yourself Jon Yardley.

    Comment by Derrick — 14 February 2008 #

  7. DEAR JOHN

    west essex definitely desreves the number 5 spot. They beat both Glen Rock who is at #9 and Chatham who’s at #7. They schedule games against garbage teams because 10 games in their season were played against teams like Ridge, MKA, Montgomery, St. Joes MEt., and Gloucester Catholic. They play in the best division besides the Gordon and they’ve held their own against most of those teams. Jon Yardley knows his stuff.

    Comment by chay — 17 February 2008 #

  8. i agree with you west essex deserves to get an at large bid

    Comment by PETER — 20 February 2008 #

  9. Job well done, Jon

    Sparta beat Vernon in a shoot-out for the Sussex Cup. Mike Postorino has truly excelled on the first line with Kris Tikkanen. Chris Pszonek held down the goalie position admirably despite a very shaky defense. They had a win and a tie against Paramus and tied Montclair twice.

    Not terrible for first year in the division.

    Comment by JJ — 21 February 2008 #

  10. pretty good seedings, but dumont should be higher, dont take them lightly. They bet Depaul and gave passaic valley a good game. Hopewell Valley better watch out!

    Comment by John — 25 February 2008 #

  11. Not sure whether they belong in A or B but I think that West Windsor South may have merited an at-large bid. While the team did struggle down the stretch – and their record did include a number of wins against the weaker squads in the CVC – they did tie both North and Tenafly and had a pair of large wins over tournament qualifier Lawrence. In fact, their two most impressive efforts may have been in losses, 3-1 to Notre Dame and 3-0 against Hopewell. Far and away the best teams in the league.

    Comment by Tony P — 1 March 2008 #

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^