Beyond the Scoresheet

Shore seeds

February 16, 2008 on 1:04 am | In analysis, breaking news | Comments Off on 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)
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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.