Wrestling: Skyland amends new division alignment

The recently approved Skyland Conference realignment for wrestling in 2018-19 and 2019-20, which was first reported by Open Mike, removed the designated crossover matches from the original plan as expected on Wednesday.

The removal of mandatory crossovers (Delaware vs. Raritan and Valley vs. Mountain), which were to count in the division standings and force programs into nine conference dual meets, was the only change to next year's formats. The breakup of the now loaded Raritan Division will remain. The construction of the new divisions was done essentially on enrollment size, not strength of program as in previous wrestling alignments.

"There were a lot of complaints," Somerville AD and former Bound Brook coach Kyle Franey said during a phone interview on Friday. "We made a real mistake with adding the crossovers.

"Wrestling is the one sport where school size doesn't matter. But we couldn't do one sport differently. We had to reset everything by size and the private schools were placed based on strength of program from the last three years. Cross country and wrestling had issues. The [new] divisions won't change."

Delaware Valley, which won Group 2 in '17, was third in the Raritan Division.

The crossovers were a bone of contention on two major points.

One, they create a logjam in schedules, increasing the number of conference matches from six to nine in the case of the current Raritan Division, which houses Bound Brook, Delaware Valley, Hunterdon Central, North Hunterdon, Phillipsburg, Voorhees and Warren Hills.

Under the new five-team divisions, power points come into play. Unlike other sports, a school's wrestling power points are factored with its opponents' numbers (best 10 matches). Phillipsburg coach Dave Post was the most critical among area coaches of the new alignment. Assistant coach Scott Silvis calculated what would have been the Stateliners' final power points last season under the new format. What they discovered were drastically lower numbers -- going from an average of 35.37 power points in the current division to 28.26 in the new format.

Skyland power points for last season and under the new format. (Scott Silvis)

"We would have been the eighth seed in North 1, Group 4 and the fourth seed in North 2, Group 4," said Post, whose team won the latter section as the No. 1 seed. "We would go from No. 1 in power points for the state in Group 4 to No. 20 in the state."

Franey also cited the added conference dates. As it stands, there are only seven Wednesday evenings available to accommodate those matches. And really it's four or five when you eliminate those Wednesdays during holiday weeks.

See it was easy for most ADs to vote this way because it makes scheduling a whole lot easier when you only have to add one independent date to get to 10. When you try to do each sport by strength of program, a lot more work is involved in the scheduling process.

"We're not going to force people to schedule sport-killing tris and quads," Franey said. "With nine conference matches there aren't enough Wednesdays."

Post was fine with whatever proposal emerged as long as he wasn't locked into nine conference dates. He admits, it's easy to want to hold onto the current division setup when his teams have won the past three titles. But one of his concerns was not being able to keep traditional matches with Delaware Valley and Warren Hills if those schools were going to be down in a given season and hurt his team's power points total. He is confident that most of the area schools will remain on future schedules.

"I thought they made the right move when they aligned the last time," said Post, whose team figures to challenge for a fifth straight Group 4 title this season. "I understand they want to go four divisions and crown another champion. But don't handcuff my schedule and make it so we can't wrestle teams with communities that come out for matches and enjoy wrestling like us."

Del Val coach Andy Fitz agreed with Post on eliminating the crossovers and keeping tradition.

"I'm OK with splitting up [the divisions], but I don't like the crossovers," said Fitz, whose team has made back-to-back appearances in the Group 2 final (winning the title last season) but has finished third, tied for third (2015-16) and fifth (2014-15) in the current Raritan Division.

"There's never going to be a perfect setup. But there are too many quads, and marquee matchups are what fans want to see. We want to keep traditional rivalries as single duals."

Skyland Conference wrestling for 2018-19 and 2019-20

Delaware

Hunterdon Central
Bridgewater-Raritan
Bound Brook
Franklin
Watchung Hills

Raritan

North Hunterdon
Phillipsburg
Hillsborough
Montgomery
Ridge

Valley

Delaware Valley
Voorhees
Warren Hills
Bernards
Somerville

Mountain

Belvidere
Manville
North Plainfield
Pingry
Rutgers Prep