The NJSIAA soothed the New Jersey high school wrestling community Monday when it announced in a press release that it it has scheduled individual state tournaments for both boys and girls in April.
The NJSIAA also made other significant announcements regarding the state tournaments.
- The site of both state finals -- boys and girls -- has not been determined and will be announced at a later date.
- The state finals for boys will be held April 24-25 and the girls will be wrestled April 10.
- The boys state tournament has been reduced, with the elimination of the districts and the team tournament.
- One important part of the state championships has survived -- medals will still be awarded to the top eight finishers at each weight.
- According to the release “determinations related to occupancy – including spectators – will be based on government mandates in effect at the time of the event.”
The NJSIAA announcement comes on the first day of practice for wrestling teams statewide.
The decision to sponsor an individual tournament -- in a season already shorted by the pandemic -- has resulted in significant changes in format. The more dramatic changes are in the boys tournament.
The 32 district tournaments have been scrapped. Concerns about finding enough district hosts and limiting potential coronavirus spreading events prompted the elimination of the districts. The NJSIAA is hopeful district tournaments will return in 2022. The state team tournament has also been eliminated for this season.
There will be a total of 64 wrestlers per weight class statewide to begin the region tournaments with 16 per weight class moving on to the state tournament. Traditionally, there would be over 250 wrestlers in each weight class starting the tournament at the district level, 96 moving on to regions and 32 advancing to states.
The NJSIAA has reduced the number of regional tournaments from eight to four. The modified format will be used for 2021 only with the hope the tournament can return to its regular schedule in 2022.
The combined regions will be comprised of wrestlers from two of the traditional regions and eight of the traditional districts. The sites for the four combined regions have not been determined and will be announced at a future date.
All four combined region sites will be contested April 17-18. The combined tournaments will have two sessions of wrestling on each day.
On April 17, the 106-, 113-, 120-, 126-pound weight classes will be wrestled in a 10 A.M. session. The 132, 138 and 145 classes will go at 4 p.m.
On April 18, 152, 160, 170 and 182 will be in the 10 a.m. session. The 4 p.m. session will have 195, 220 and 285 pounds.
The combined regions are based off traditional regions and geography. Region 1-2 will represent North Jersey, Section 1; Region 3-4 represents North Jersey, Section 2; Region 5-6, Central Jersey and Region 7-8, South Jersey.
Combined region selection and seeding
• Coaches must submit the wrestlers for selection consideration by 5 p.m. on April 10. Once a wrestler is submitted in a weight class, it can not be changed.
• The combined regional selection committees will meet on April 11.
• The traditional eight regions will be represented by a selection committee from the New Jersey Wrestling Coaches Association comprised of the region president and one coach representing each of the four districts in that region. The district representatives will be selected by the regional presidents.
• Each regional selection committee will submit 12 wrestlers for seeding consideration in all 14 weight classes. At least three wrestlers from every district, in each weight class, must be considered for seeding.
• Each selection committee will be provided a yet-to-be-finalized criteria with the goal of consistency statewide.
• The region seeding committees are required to have different members than the selection committee.
• The seeding committees will be made up of seven members -- combined region tournament administrator, the two regional presidents and two coaches from each of the two, combined regions. The coaches will be chosen by the region presidents.
• Each seeding committee will use the same seeding criteria that has been used in recent seasons.
• The 24 selected wrestlers in each of the four tournament weight classes will be seeded into 16-wrestler brackets with eight alternates. Those alternates will be seeded 17-24 in the event of injury, sickness or opt-outs. The No. 17 seed would be the first wrestler placed if he is needed to complete a bracket, followed by No. 18, No. 19 and so on.
• There does not need to be an even split between the two combined regions when it comes to the 16 seeds in each combined region weight class.
• Region wrestlebacks will begin with the quarterfinal round.
• Places 1-6 will be contested. The top four wrestlers will advance to the state tournament. The fifth- and sixth-place wrestlers will be available as state tournament alternates.
• Wrestlers not seeded into the combined regional tournaments have the option of wrestling in dual meets through the end of the state tournament. However, a wrestler who enters the state tournament and is eliminated is done for the remainder of the season.
“It doesn’t have to be eight wrestlers from Region 1 and eight from Region 2,” said one member of a regional selection committee, who spoke to NJ Advance Media before the announcement and requested anonymity. “It can be a 10-6, 9-7, 12-4 split. The goal is to get the best kids into the bracket.”
“The seeding process for the super regionals is going to be a goulash of established criteria (previous regional and state tournament advancement), but there will have to be some subjectivity and human elements in the process,” another coach said.
“Because the OPC (wrestler power points) will not be accurate, I think we start with the previous advancement, get to a pre-seed and then factor in head-to-head and as much of the usual criteria as we can,” said the first coach. “I think everyone understands placing the stud freshman is going to be tough, but I think we can get it pretty close.
“With the state tournament, there will be plenty of data simply because the kids got there.”
The state championships
• The round-by-round schedule will be determined once a site has been selected.
• The state tournament seeding committee will be made up of the tournament director (Howie O’Neill) and the eight NJWCA regional presidents.
• The state tournament seeding committee will use the same criteria employed in recent NJSIAA state tournaments.
• Wrestlebacks will be used to determined places third through eighth.
Girls state tournament
• Coaches must submit the wrestlers for selection consideration by 5 p.m. on March 27. Once a wrestler is submitted in a weight class, it can not be changed.
• The tournament will be selected and seeded on March 30.
• The girls state tournament will be seeded by a committee comprised of tournament staff and coaches across the state.
• There will be two regional tournaments. The North will be held at Union, the South at Williamstown.
• In both regional events, eight wrestlers will be seeded at each weight using seeding criteria used last season. There will be four alternates at each weight.
• The top four finishers at each weight, in both of the region tournaments, will advance to the state tournament.
• The seeding meeting for the state tournament is scheduled for April 6.
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Joe Zedalis covers high school wrestling for NJ.com. He may be reached at jzedalis@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @josephzedalis. Like NJ.com HS sports on Facebook.
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