By Mike Gurnis
Are we having fun yet?
I’ve been covering the sport in some manner for about 11 years now, and I don’t recall an opening round of the state tournament anywhere close to as chaotic as what unfolded on Monday. In total, including the girls tournament, seven (!) double-digit seeds advanced out of the first round. Five of them came from the North, Public Co-Op bracket alone!
The sectional tournament format, which the NJSIAA adopted for ice hockey last year, seems to be a hit. Travel is cut down with the North and South sections, and for the most part, the games have been very, very competitive.
I covered KJS United’s first round game with Hoboken-Weehawken-Secaucus in the North, Public Co-Op tournament, and it turned out to be one of the few blowouts that took place on Monday. KJS rolled to an emphatic 7-1 win in an 8 vs. 9 game, and looked every bit of the team that it did in December when it was ranked in the statewide Top 20 and appeared to be ticketed to be a top seed in this bracket.
This team looks like one that has put its January struggles behind it. Braydon Sisco, the Mennen Division MVP this year (as a sophomore!) scored four goals. The whole game, KJS seemed to have a clear speed advantage and was able to break out cleanly and sustain pressure in the offensive zone.
It’s going to have a huge challenge ahead of it on Thursday night when it travels to face top-seeded Pascack Regional at 8:55 p.m. at Sport-O-Rama up in Monsey, N.Y. But after what I saw on Monday night, I would not be the least bit surprised if KJS found a way to win this game. It may be an 8-seed, but when this team has all of its personnel (with the exception of one of its top forwards in Eddy Brown) and is clicking on all cylinders like it was on Monday night, it is going to be a very tough out.
Consider this: Morris Knolls-Hills, which was seeded 10th in the North, Co-Op bracket, will essentially have home-ice advantage for the remainder of this tournament.
That is not something anyone could have foreseen going into Monday night. No, it was not surprising that the defending state champions managed to take down seventh-seeded Clifton United on the road to advance to the quarterfinals. It was a mild upset, at best, given the track record Morris Knolls-Hills has as a program.
But how about this? Because of all of the chaos which devolved on Monday, Morris Knolls-Hills is now the highest-seeded team remaining on its side of the bracket. Thanks to 15th-seeded Lakeland-Waldwick-Hawthorne’s upset of second-seeded Ramsey-Indian Hills, Morris Knolls-Hills gets to host the 15th-seed in the quarterfinals at Mennen Arena.
On that side of the bracket, 14th-seeded Nutley-Columbia-Bloomfield stunned third-seeded Fair Lawn-Dumont-Bergenfield, and 11th-seeded West Milford-Pequannock-Pompton Lakes edged sixth-seeded Verona-Glen Ridge.
So, if Morris Knolls-Hills is victorious on Thursday, it’ll host another game in the semifinals on Monday.
The designated site for the North, Co-Op sectional final this year? Sure enough, it’s Mennen Arena.
Morristown is a very interesting team that I’ve had my eye on this year, and it looks like it may be peaking at the right time with a four-game winning streak, which continued with a 3-0 win over seventh-seeded Chatham in the North, Public tournament on Monday.
Prior to this four-game heater, Morristown was 5-12-2. But this team had some very eye-opening results throughout the year which suggested it was better than the record indicated.
It was responsible for KJS United’s only loss in December, a 3-2 win on Dec. 13. It dropped a pair of one-goal losses to Top 20 teams in Passaic Tech and Morristown-Beard in December as well. On January 11, it had a 2-1 lead on one of the top public teams around in Randolph in the final five minutes of the game, before the Rams incredibly scored five goals in the final five minutes of the game to win 6-2.
Most of its losses have been very competitive throughout the year. It has some really talented underclassmen, highlighted by Mennen Rookie of the Year Luke Williams, the team’s leading scorer. Junior goalie Artie Conover has been a great story in taking over as the starting netminder despite limited experience at the position.
It will have its hands full with second-seeded Livingston in the quarterfinals on Thursday. But it is worth noting- they did play back on Jan. 13- which was a 4-2 Livingston win. However, that game was tied 2-2 with just over five minutes left when Livingston broke the tie and then sealed it with an empty-netter.
Morristown has every reason to be confident it can pull the upset on Thursday.
Mendham’s Brendon Eigner just continues to impress. He’s had an incredible career as the starter for the Minutemen, proving he can be a goalie who steals you a game when everything is on the line.
That’s exactly what he did on Monday with a 30-save shutout to help the ninth-seeded Minutemen take down eighth-seeded Summit in the North, Public first round.
He has an other-worldly .951 save percentage while playing every minute of his squad’s 22 games this season. Up next for him and Mendham will be their biggest challenge to date- top-seeded and defending Public champion Northern Highlands on Thursday at Sport-O-Rama.
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Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 