Field hockey: Preliminary look at HWS tourney seeds

The fifth annual Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex tournament gets under way on Saturday with two pigtail round games.

Here's this year's complete schedule:

Pigtails on Saturday, Sept. 28 at the higher seeds, with the winners advancing to the eight pre-quarterfinal round contests on Saturday, Oct. 5 at the higher seeds. The quarterfinals are slated for Saturday, Oct. 12 at the higher seeds with the semifinals to be played on Saturday, Oct. 19.

The championship game will be held on Saturday, Oct. 26 on the turf at Hackettstown's Morrison Field, provided it's a neutral site. Voorhees posted a 1-0 win over High Point in last year's title game, the Hunterdon County school's second HWS championship and its 10th county title overall.

But first thing's first, the teams must be paired and seeded, which takes place on Wednesday evening.

There's a new format for seeding this year with power points being used to pair the schools, unlike previous years when they were determined by coaches' votes. I believe this change is for the better, but I don't like using a team's first seven games, or if less than seven, their number of games played up to and including Wednesday's cutoff.

By my count, seven of the 18 schools will not have played seven games, giving 11 other teams the advantage of extra power points. In head-to-head cases, teams may jump only the school directly above or below, so if a No. 5 beat a No. 4 they would flip spots.

Based on my calculations, Pope John would host North Warren in an 8-9 matchup, while No. 10 North Hunterdon would travel to No. 7 Wallkill Valley for Saturday's pigtail round.

UPDATE: Here are the other potential matchups (A-Sussex, B-H/W). Note: Kittatinny will be the No. 5 seed and Newton the No. 6 seed based on a head-to-head win for the Cougars.

Top bracket

8B-Delaware Valley (1-4-1, 29.75) at 1A-High Point (6-0-1, 89.5)
5A-Kittatinny (2-3-1, 50.5) at 4B-Hackettstown (4-2, 61.5)
6B-Belvidere (3-3-1, 56.25) at 3A-Lenape Valley (4-1-1, 71)
10B-North Hunterdon (1-4, 19) vs. 7A-Wallkill Valley (3-4, 38) winner at 2B-Hunterdon Central (6-1, 88)

Bottom bracket

9B-North Warren (1-4-1, 20) vs. 8A-Pope John (0-7, 19) winner at 1B-South Hunterdon (7-0, 118.5)
5B-Warren Hills (3-3-1, 60) at 4A-Vernon (4-3, 62)
6A-Newton (3-3, 58.5) at 3B-Voorhees (5-2, 86.5)
7B-Phillipsburg (1-4-2, 36.5) at 2A-Sparta (4-2, 72)