Skyland Conference realignment for 2014-16

I'm a little late in the game on this, but here's the official Skyland Conference realignment for baseball, field hockey and wrestling for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years.

There are plenty of mixed feelings on the realignment -- which occurs every two years -- in all three sports. My personal feeling is that football has been destroyed in this state with realignment by group size and the advent of the Mid-State 38 and the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference in our area.

Rivalries in football and other sports are dying off left and right, I mean, is anyone getting jacked up to see Warren Hills play Scotch Plains or High Point take on Mount Olive in football? Judging by the 20 or so people in the stands for some of these games, I'd say no.

In field hockey, we are lucky in this area to have one of the best rivalries in all of New Jersey with Voorhees and Warren Hills. Each year, these two schools battle at least twice in the Raritan Division and on occasion a third time in the Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex Tournament.

But next year, the two state powers will reside in different divisions -- Warren Hills in the Raritan and Voorhees in the Valley. Now what sense does that make? Sports are all about rivalries and realignment is ruining one of the best in the sport. Both coaches -- Warren Hills' Laurie Kerr and Voorhees' Taylor Webb have said their teams will meet once in the 2014 regular season, but who knows what the future holds.

In wrestling, I feel the powers that be did an excellent job in realigning the divisions, that for the most part take in consideration geography and competitive balance. Most of the Raritan Division schools are none to happy about Bound Brook moving in from the small-school Valley Division, but you'd rather see the Crusaders matching up against Phillipsburg and Hunterdon Central than Bernards and North Plainfield, which are nowhere near that level and are just trying to maintain programs.

What realignment has done on the mats is create arguably the toughest single division of any conference in New Jersey. This grouping on its own is a stellar conference and puts many to shame.

Over on the baseball side, we saw some battles in the Raritan Division last year under the current alignment of Delaware Valley, Somerville, Warren Hills, Voorhees, Ridge and Franklin, and in previous years with Pingry and North Plainfield among this group.

While the division doesn't drastically change for 2015, add in Bernards and Rutgers Prep and take out Ridge and Franklin, Blue Streaks coach Mike Quinto would like to see the Raritan remain as is. It certainly is a far cry better than when Warren Hills was in the bigger division with powers Hunterdon Central, Immaculata and Watchung Hills.

"We've had a competitive baseball division the last couple of years. Almost anybody can win it," said Quinto, whose 2010 team went 2-14 in divisional play. "When we played with the big boys, we had some good teams and we struggled. This [current setup] is competitive for the most part. All the teams can beat each other on any given day."

That was supposed to be the goal of Skyland Conference realignment. Strike competitive balance and consider geography in the process. In this era of budget cuts, some of these divisions make absolutely ZERO sense. Why don't Phillipsburg and Warren Hills, for example, reside in the same division? It's stupid in turn to make them go to Hillsborough or Bernards.

It is what it is for the next two years. Hopefully, brighter minds will prevail for the next round in 2016-18.

(Note: There are crossovers between the Delaware and Raritan divisions and the Valley and Mountain divisions in field hockey and only between the Delaware and Raritan in baseball. There are no crossovers in wrestling, all division teams wrestle each other one time).

Baseball
Delaware	Raritan	Valley	Mountain
Bridgewater	Franklin	Bernards	Belvidere
Hillsborough	Montgomery	Delaware Valley	Bound Brook
Hunterdon Central	North Hunterdon	Rutgers Prep	Gill St. Bernard's
Immaculata	Phillipsburg	Somerville	Manville
Watchung Hills	Ridge	Voorhees	North Plainfield
		Warren Hills	Pingry
			South Hunterdon
Field Hockey
Delaware	Raritan	Valley	Mountain
Bridgewater	Montgomery	Bernards	Belvidere
Hillsborough	North Hunterdon	Delaware Valley	Mount St. Mary
Hunterdon Central	Phillipsburg	Franklin	North Plainfield
Pingry	Warren Hills	Somerville	South Hunterdon
Ridge	Watchung Hills	Voorhees
Wrestling
Delaware	Raritan	Valley
Bridgewater	Bound Brook	Belvidere
Franklin	Delaware Valley	Bernards
Hillsborough	Hunt. Central	Manville
Montgomery	North Hunterdon	North Plainfield
Ridge	Phillipsburg	Pingry
Somerville	Voorhees	Rutgers Prep
Watchung Hills	Warren Hills