What's in a name: H-W-S(Sussex and/or Somerset)?

Seems we have another county that begins with 'S' interested in joining the Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex Tournament.

For 11 years, it's been a tri-county affair in Northwest Jersey, but this past spring, Somerset County, which is comprised of 16 schools competing in their own tournaments, reached out to HWS officials about the possibility of making it a four-county event (with up to 36 schools) across all sports.

"They've expressed interest to join if we ever decided to expand," said North Warren athletic director John Simonetti. "I think 20 teams for a county tournament is fine."

Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex, which is currently comprised of 20 schools, has not expressed, at least publicly, that it would consider an increase in membership for its events. However, there have been rumblings in recent years that Sussex County would like to once again hold its own tournaments -- as it did prior to joining the former Hunterdon-Warren association for the 2009-10 school year.

Several coaches and ADs have mentioned they'd welcome the move to go solo, though no one has gone on the record in support of such a proposal. But with Somerset expressing interest, this may give Sussex the impetus to make a move. High Point athletic director Todd Van Orden could not be reached for comment, but a regular meeting of Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex ADs is slated for today. It is not known whether Somerset wanting to join will be on the agenda as other pressing issues are likely to be discussed, including seeding criteria for the upcoming fall events.

One chief complaint from the Sussex side is the travel. For example, High Point or Vernon making the trek to South Hunterdon or Delaware Valley is quite the trip, especially if a team faces the prospect of a blowout defeat. That certainly goes for the other counties in regards to travel.

Hackettstown won its first HWS field hockey title in 2018.

Another is the latter. Sussex County has been up against it competition-wise in several sports over the years -- in particular field hockey. Newton is the only Sussex program with a field hockey title -- sharing the 2009 prize with Warren Hills when the final was never contested due to scheduling conflicts. High Point is the only other Sussex school to reach a field hockey final (2011-12).

Overall, Hunterdon-Warren teams are 111-86 in the field hockey tournaments, while Sussex is 53-73. High Point (14-9) and Newton (10-9) are the only Sussex schools with winning records, while Warren Hills (32-4 and a tournament-best six titles) and Voorhees (21-8 and two titles) have dominated this event.

Across the 23 tournaments involving all sports, Hunterdon Central leads in titles won in 13 events, including a record nine in boys swimming. The Red Devils have won a combined 89 championships overall. Other than Central's nine in boys swimming and eight in girls swimming, boys lacrosse and boys tennis, and seven in girls golf, no other HWS school has won more than six titles in any sport.

For the sake of our Open Mike coverage, wrestling would be another issue. The 18-school (soon to be 19 in a few years with the revival of South Hunterdon's program) HWS Tournament is regarded as the state's toughest and losing Sussex -- which includes former team champions High Point, Kittatinny and Pope John -- would be a major hit.

In addition, the Somerset schools are members of the Skyland Conference and therefore already play or wrestle against the Hunterdon-Warren schools in division or crossover contests. Adding them to the county tournaments would just be overkill in a lot of sports. Plus, several sports hold Skyland Conference championship events. That isn't the case with the current setup as all of Sussex (as well as Hackettstown and North Warren) compete in the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference.

The 16 Somerset County Tournament schools are: Bernards, Bridgewater-Raritan, Bound Brook, Franklin, Gill-St. Bernard's, Hillsborough, Immaculata, Manville, Montgomery, Mount St. Mary, North Plainfield, Pingry, Ridge, Rutgers Prep, Somerville, Watchung Hills.