Beyond the Scoresheet

February Top 20 poll

Alright, alright, everybody loves a Top 20 ranking. I had to do a Top 10 this week for my Hockey Night in Boston write-up, so here’s a full Top 20. Not easy to come up with, necessarily, but fun to discuss. Here we go …
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Q & A

One note of interest – Pingry and St. Augustine Prep will play one week from today at Bridgewater Sports Arena. Now that’s the kind of late-season scheduling we like to see!

Also, a few questions and answers on this Friday while awaiting results from the 30 (!) games on schedule tonight. Read on …

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division tiebreakers

Hey, y’all. Sorry it’s been so long between posts, and I apologize for the lack of rankings to give everybody something else to talk about. Things have been pretty busy down here, between looking for a job (I even had a Jersey hockey connection try to help me out, so keep your fingers crossed for me) and writing for HNIB (my next deadline is 2/6, so expect a ranking around then) and playing indoor soccer (almost broke my toe last night), not to mention my day job; things have been pretty hectic.

You’ll notice the Ice Cups page is up and I’ve made a few minor tweaks to the division pages. The solid line across the schedule now indicates (except where I’ve neglected to make the change, and I’ll get to it) the state tournament cutoff date. You know the rules – teams must have at least a .500 record at the conclusion of Feb. 12 and have satisfied a few basic scheduling conditions to be eligible for the state tournament. Plus Gordon teams, plus at-large bids (teams must be within four games of .500 to apply for an at-large bid). So that’s D-Day for a lot of teams around the state. Keep in mind that NJSIAA Tournament Director Paul McInnis has informed various coaches that shootout AND overtime losses during regular season play count as TIES for state tournament eligibility. I will continue to give a win or loss for overtime results, but not for shootouts. Also, the gray background for a game indicates it is a ‘cup’ game (why I classify the NJISAA tournament as a cup and not the Titans Cup, we’ll never know).

Finally, the most common question I’ve been receiving has been about division tiebreakers. After conferring with various people, our dear Mike Morreale among them, I have reached the following conclusions. NJIHL division ties are broken by:

(1) Wins; (2) Head-to-head results; (3) Goal differential in division play; (4) Coin flip. I’m not 100 percent sure about goal differential, because I seem to remember a Gordon Conference tie decided by coin flip in 2004-05, but it’s possible there were mitigating circumstances.

In Morris County, ties are broken by the following, taken directly from league by-laws:

Criteria for breaking ties for tournament seeding:
a.        League standing.
b.        Head to head competition.
c.        Your record against teams seeded ahead of you.
d.        The team who has defeated the higher seeded team.
e.        Head to head competition with team ranked directly below.
f.        If tie still exists head to head with every succeeding team below
until the tie is broken.
g.        If three or more teams are tied, the composite record of all teams
that are tied against each other.  If one of the three teams is eliminated
at “H.”, return to “B.” to break the tie among the remaining two tied teams
and follow the tie breaking process from there.
h.        If a tie still exists – least amount of penalty minutes in league
games.

In the NBIAL, you’re on your own. Nobody even knows what kind of tournament that darn league is having, let alone who qualifies for it how. The ADs up there need to get their act together.

Feel free to email me or post here with questions and I’ll try to answer them later this week. And, if you want to continue reading really random rambling, click below.

Continue reading division tiebreakers…

Meningitis scare

Well, the hockey must go on, but I’m sure we can all agree the meningitis scare in North Jersey has us all thinking about more serious things. Ramapo High School has news posted about the condition of its students and a Thursday blood drive in Franklin Lakes. http://www.rih.org/?detail=381#ID381.

Best to everybody at Ramapo.

history lesson

lot of games to touch on and shout-outs to be given, but I’m going to give some historical notes instead.

First, today’s big early shock – Pingry beating Randolph 3-2. First time Pingry had beaten Randolph in almost seven years (0-8), since the final week of the regular season in
February 2000. That was when they were both in the Mennen Division and split two games in the final week of the season, allowing Pingry to finish third at 5-6, ahead of Randolph at 4-7. They met twice in 2000-01 and once each year since, with an additional meeting in the 2003 Mennen Cup quarterfinals. Most of the games have been close, with a few exceptions from 2001-02. A big breakthrough win for Pingry, though. I don’t know how long it can keep happening, but Pingry just keeps winning.

Also today, Morristown-Beard edged Bergen Catholic 2-1. The Crimson have had the Crusaders’ number the last few years, but not by much. That’s another result that makes rankings tougher – would Kinnelon beat Bergen Catholic? Comparative scores are a crapshoot, but still.

You had to love the war of words between Ramapo coach Steve Schick in the paper last week and Northern Highlands coach Jason Beswick in the paper after his team’s 3-1 win on Saturday. Both laid claim to their team being the league’s best, Beswick doing so after his team had proved it on the ice. These teams cannot meet again unless they are matched up in the NJSIAA tournament, since they play in different NBIAL divisions.

Obviously, Delbarton beat Seton Hall Prep 5-1 Friday night, the most decisive result in the series since a 6-2 Delbarton win in February 2001. Four goals is the largest margin of victory in the series since 1996 (Delbarton 8-1). I’m sure Jeff Goldberg or Mike Morreale could give you the all-time series, but in what I’m calling the modern era (separate NJSIAA tournaments, 1994-95 on), Delbarton leads the series 15-10-2. But as most fans know, Seton Hall Prep leads the NJSIAA tournament series 5-4.

Finally, I’ve heard that St. Augustine Prep, which has only three non-league games currently on its schedule, has been unable to get a Gordon Conference school on its schedule. I know that’s a long ride, scheduling can be hard, and elite players have more junior commitments, but you can’t tell me Seton Hall Prep (four non-league games), Don Bosco Prep, and Bergen Catholic have NO room on their schedule. I suggest those three because St. Peter’s Prep played three games in Maine, and Delbarton, CBA, and Pope John are all close to full. As everybody knows, Gordon Conference teams have very little to gain by scheduling a team like St. Augustine Prep, but boy, would I like to see it. Paging Peter Herms …

the big one

Short post today, because things are pretty simple. Y’all, enjoy the game tonight. It is the best rivalry in New Jersey high school sports. It is the most exciting night of the regular season. Mennen will be alive with people tonight, and unless you have a game of your own, you want to be there. I know I do. This will be the first season since 1993-94 in which I will not see a Delbarton-Seton Hall Prep game, and the first one at Mennen I’ve missed since the teams began playing regularly. That’s pretty strange.

So go early, stay late, high-five your buddy in the parking lot or lobby and then scream your guts out against him in the stands. Cheer loud and long, enjoy people-watching, enjoy the hockey, and stay classy. It’s a fun night, and it’s one game that usually lives up to its billing. Don’t miss it.

Finally, a Top 20 poll

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:

Continue reading Finally, a Top 20 poll…