Somerville’s huge upset win over Hillsborough Friday night all of a sudden has them in the thick of the playoff race. Here’s a look at Central Jersey Sports Radio’s unofficial playoff standing update for Group 3’s North and South supersections:
West Morris and Old Tappan hang on to the No. 1 and No. 2 spots they each had last week, though Old Tappan slipped from a solid 2 to a 2.4 UPR.
Hillside and Cranford flipped this week, even though the Comets haven’t played yet. They go from fourth to third, while the Cougars slipped from third to fourth due to the OSI factor of Friday night’s win over Linden. Hillside plays Delaware Valley at home Saturday, and the question is: Can they move into second with a win?
This is where the system gets complicated. Because even though Hillside is third in UPR, they have limited room to rise, even though they’re just 0.2 UPR behind Old Tappan.
Teams can’t rise in UPR directly. They have to do it through power point rank or OSI rank. Every position up a team goes in power point rank is worth 0.4 UPR points shaved off, yielding a better UPR. So an increase in power point average rank of one spot would do the trick. But Hillside is second in that category overall, and Old Tappan is third. So even though Old Tappan is ahead of them in UPR, that’s not the team they’re chasing in power points. And West Morris (No. 1 in power points) is 5 points ahead of them.
Del Val is a 23 point game, but that still would only get Hillside to 18, well behind West Morris’ 21.5 average.
For OSI, Old Tappan and West Morris are ahead of them, and while a win Saturday vs. Del Val would increase Hillside’s OSI by about 3, they’re still two behind Old Tappan. But a win is still important to avoid falling back to fourth, where they could lose that spot next week.
Summit dropped two places – they play Colonia today – but still has had a meteoric rise from 24th to 7th (after last week) after starting the year 0-3 but winning its next three games. Huge chance against the Patriots Saturday, as a win could get them as high as 6th.
Bottom Line: Hillside and Cranford both need to win next week to lock up home field through at least the semifinals, assuming no one passes them otherwise with “stronger” wins. A win over Colonia might solidify at least a first-round home game for Summit.
South 3 is where it starts to get interesting. We’ll begin with the easy one, South Plainfield, which, despite a win Friday night over a “weak” Perth Amboy team, dropped a spot to 8th. The Tigers are in the playoffs, no doubt, but they’d love a first-round home game.
The next two Big Central teams are tied at the cutoff line.
Carteret – despite losing to Rahway Friday night – holds in 16th.
But Somerville, in desperation mode to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time since 2015 – when Jeff Vanderbeek was “co-head coach” – came up with a massive and convincing win over Hillsborough Friday night to improve to 3-5, and get back in the heat of the race. The Pioneers jumped from No. 21 to tie the Ramblers for 16th, with another must-win looming at South Brunswick next week. But if they could beat the Raiders, why not the Vikings?
One interesting thing to note here: Wall is in 15th, aided on the power point side by multiplier losses to Red Bank Catholic and Donovan Catholic. But with zero wins, and the NJSIAA making two wins the minimum this year, they’re essentially eliminated. Which means, as of this moment, Carteret and Somerville would be in.
Bottom Line: South Plainfield is in, but may need a win next week to guarantee a first-round home game. It looks like Carteret and Somerville both have must-win games next week to get in, but with losses by teams behind them, may be able to sneak in. The Ramblers may be able to better suffer a loss, considering their opponent is Hillside. Just know this: it’ll be an exciting Cutoff Weekend!
Discover more from Central Jersey Sports Radio
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.