NJSIAA Tournament qualifiers

February 13, 2007 on 2:10 pm | In breaking news | 15 Comments

Not as polarizing as a Top 20 but more useful, here is a list of state tournament qualifiers and at-large hopefuls. I will finalize my suggested seeding (suggested, not projected) after at-large bids are announced.

Meanwhile, here are my at-large selections: Private: let them both in. Mo-Beard and St. Joseph Metuchen play in tough divisions and narrowly missed out. Both have beaten several teams that are in the tournament. I have no problem letting both of them in on the dance. Public: A bit tougher. I still think it’s pretty clear cut. Verona actually had almost no big wins (does Summit count?) but played a ridiculously tough schedule and lost five games by only one goal. I’m in favor. Middletown South lost to Princeton but otherwise consistently showed itself to be a public capable of playing at the upper levels of White Division play, which is enough for me. 6-1-2 record vs. public schools. Mountain Lakes plays in a ridiculously tough division, especially for a public. I was all set to let the Lakers in when I stumbled upon their 2-2 tie with Morris Hills and their 5-4 loss to Vernon. Now, I’m no Northern Conference apologist, but when you have a head to head win like that and a win over Fair Lawn, I guess you have to let the Vikings in. That leaves out Indian Hills. EDIT: To clarify, I looked at Indian Hills again. .500 in league play, 0-4 against very, very tough non-league competition. Only one bad loss. Split with Fair Lawn. Not a bad resume. And I think the NBIAL was stronger than the Northern Red this year. I might have to call it a toss-up between IH and Vernon. Which could result in neither getting a bid. Tough call here.
Brick – if you can’t get a .500 record playing in the White Division, there’s no point.
And you know what that means for the other eligible teams.

So that’s my take. In: Morristown-Beard, St. Joseph Metuchen, Middletown South, Verona, Vernon. We’ll see what the committee says.

Last update: 18 February 2007, 11:25 pm CT
Public (51 in, 13 at-large eligible)
* records as they count for NJSIAA records; at-large bids not considered

In (in rough seeding order)

  1. Randolph
  2. Ridge
  3. Bridgewater-Raritan
  4. Morris Knolls
  5. Northern Highlands
  6. Fair Lawn
  7. Ramapo
  8. Hillsborough
  9. Watchung Hills
  10. Montgomery
  11. Chatham
  12. Glen Rock
  13. Mendham
  14. Hopewell Valley
  15. Middletown North
  16. Steinert
  17. Kinnelon
  18. Pequannock
  19. Jefferson
  20. Mahwah
  21. Westfield
  22. Summit
  23. Ridgewood
  24. Tenafly
  25. Princeton
  26. Park Regional
  27. Wall
  28. West Milford
  29. Toms River East
  30. Rumson-Fair Haven
  31. Point Pleasant
  32. Brick Memorial
  33. Cranford
  34. Ramsey
  35. Pascack Valley
  36. Paramus
  37. Nutley
  38. Lakeland
  39. Wayne Valley
  40. River Dell
  41. Dumont
  42. Sparta
  43. Roxbury
  44. Morristown
  45. WWPN
  46. Lawrence
  47. WWPS
  48. Johnson
  49. Passaic Valley
  50. Dayton
  51. Jackson Memorial

Eligible for at-large

  1. Verona (9-13)
  2. Middletown South (7-11-3)
  3. Mountain Lakes (8-11-4)
  4. Vernon (9-10-4)
  5. Indian Hills (7-11-3)
  6. Brick Township (6-9-3)
  7. Bernards (9-12)
  8. Toms River South (8-10-1)
  9. Madison (8-10-2)
  10. Mount Olive (7-9-3)
  11. Hamilton (8-11-2)
  12. Scotch Plains-Fanwood (9-11-2)

Private (18 in, 2 at-large eligible)

In

  1. Delbarton
  2. St. Peter’s Prep
  3. CBA
  4. Seton Hall Prep
  5. St. Augustine Prep
  6. Notre Dame
  7. Bergen Catholic (automatic)
  8. Pope John
  9. Pingry
  10. Don Bosco Prep (automatic)
  11. Bishop Eustace
  12. Monsignor Donovan
  13. Montclair Kimberley
  14. Paramus Catholic
  15. St. Joseph Montvale
  16. St. John Vianney (automatic)
  17. St. Joseph Hammonton
  18. DePaul Catholic

Eligible for at-large

  1. Morristown-Beard (8-9-3)
  2. St. Joseph Metuchen (7-9-2)

15 Comments

  1. Good job Jon – once again, you’re making lots of sense of it all by trying to use logic. Not as hyped on a few of the Gordons as in past years. The thinking that because they beat each other up all year they get ‘extra credit’ shouldn’t hold as true this year because there’s a few easy games in that Gordon this year. That being said, the top 3 are dead on and BC has played well lately and deserves their spot as well.

    Comment by db — 6 February 2007 #

  2. Jon

    Good work as usual….hope all is well with you…….back to back we hope

    Larry

    Comment by larry schillings — 6 February 2007 #

  3. Why is Hopewell Valley five spots behind a Montgomery team that they beat 5-2 this season?

    And given the difference in overall schedule, I understand still keeping Notre Dame behind St. Peter’s. But four spots?

    Other than that, well done!

    Comment by JB — 7 February 2007 #

  4. Jon, do games played after the state cutoff still count towards the seeding process?

    TERRY – Technically, I believe the committee is not supposed to consider post-deadline results. Since opinions on teams are subjective, however, I think those results do get factored into committee members’ heads.

    – JTY

    Comment by Terry — 8 February 2007 #

  5. Nice job with the rankings. A shame that Hamilton still warrants consideration after “postponing” (until after the cutoff, of course) long-scheduled CVC games vs. Princeton and one of the WWP teams (South?). One of the hazards of a record-only qualification system, I guess.

    Comment by Andy M. — 9 February 2007 #

  6. Do you think Pequannok should be ranked above Jefferson? Jefferson has been seeded 1st in the Haas playoffs. Jefferson tied Hillsborough, who is ranked 8th.

    Comment by Bob — 12 February 2007 #

  7. PJ beat bc and tied them…should be ahead of bc.

    Comment by Frank — 13 February 2007 #

  8. any chance of west essex getting in even with the losses they play in the toughest schedule. you say verona but west essex beat them twice

    Comment by jerry — 13 February 2007 #

  9. Great Job, and I agree about Verona……a schedule that included 9 games vs. the top 13 on your list is a monster, especially for a program that has less than half the student body (some only a third) of those schools. They came close against Ridge a few weeks ago, and followed that with a close on against Montgomery.

    Comment by Mike — 13 February 2007 #

  10. Jon,
    I think you are wrong about Indian Hills. They are .500 in their league, NBIAL. which is a very tough league. You have three of them in your top 10 and IH beat Fair Lawn,and lost Fair Lawn by 1, tied NH and took Ramapo to 13.8 seconds. IH has three losses to MK. Rand., and Bridge-water Raritan. Yes two of them were blowouts but they were early in the season. At the end of the season Randolph beat them by 5, a week later Randolph beat Ridge by 4. There are 2 teams (PV and Ramsey) who have both qualified for the tournament yet finished below IH in the standings. IH could have gone out and played sub-.500 teams for their non-leagues and then they would not be in this position. IH is better than more than half of the teams in the tournament, if they do not get it would suggest to teams you are better off playing weak teams, running up the scores and padding your record as opposed to developing good hockey programs.

    Comment by LB — 14 February 2007 #

  11. I agree with the comment made by LB regarding Indian Hills. They played three very tough non-league games which is of more value then playing easy teams simply to qualify for the tournament. They really do deserve a spot.

    Comment by KB — 14 February 2007 #

  12. Why does Notre Dame and St.Augistine deserve to be above BC? BC is one of the hottest teams entering the tournament…they have beaten or tied top Gordon teams in the strecth run. The only reason they tied PJ in their last game was because half the team was sick…yet they still tied them despite that fact.

    Comment by SB — 14 February 2007 #

  13. ND and SA should be above BC. BC has 6 winns this year and just because teams play in Gordon Conf, it is not the only good hockey in state. Check the Stats, ND has 1 Loss and SA is undefeated. All this does not matter because if you don’t play well in states than you don’t deserve respect.

    Comment by BB — 15 February 2007 #

  14. Jon-

    Of the 123 NJ High School Teams you follow, only 15 have 15+ wins, one of those being Wall. A quick count shows that of those 123 schools, 5 teams have let up 33 or fewer goals (admittedly probably missed 2-3), those teams are St. Augustine Prep, Paramus Catholic, Glen Rock, Randolph and yes, Wall.

    Last week Wall outplayed and beat Verona 3-2 (not having a great year but one you said should get into the States because of their “ridiculosly tough schedule” in Central Red).

    Wall has these kind of numbers and they drop in your rankings from #17 to #27? Not saying Wall is “Top 10” material, but #27?

    Comment by Bob — 19 February 2007 #

  15. Wall did not dominate Verona in the slightest way. Wall scored 3 goals in the first 2 minutes on 3 shots. Verona had their backup in because their starter was hurt. After that, the game was all Verona.

    Comment by jimmy 2x's — 19 February 2007 #

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^