Part 1 of 2. South Jersey will be next.
*Corrected mistake in Group 5. I had Livingston in Section 2 and Union City in Section 1. I discovered that Livingston High School is slightly north of Union City High School on the map. Therefore I just made an adjustment to Group 5.
Below are the brackets for the playoffs if they were to start this weekend. The changes in sections from last week involve Randolph moving to Section 2 in Group 4 and Montville moving to Section 2 in Group 3. Other changes involved teams moving into the brackets of 16. Things will change with three more weeks of playoffs: teams can move in or out of the playoffs or they could be in a different section than they are today, as shown. The teams not currently in the playoffs at this point are listed below each group and I am calling them wild cards. Calculations are courtesy of www.gridironnewjersey.com. I did my own geographical work to determine who is further north or south of one another. Here is how it looks for now:
Group 1:
Section 1: (1) Hasbrouck Heights – (2) New Milford – (3) Park Ridge – (4) Butler – (5) Emerson – (6) Wallkill Valley – (7) Boonton – (8) Cresskill
Section 2: (1) Shabazz – (2) Weequahic – (3) Cedar Grove – (4) Hoboken – (5) West Side – (6) Brearley – (7) – New Providence – (8) Bound Brook
Wild Cards: Dunellen, Pompton Lakes, Wood-Ridge, Hopatcong, Wallington, Saddle Brook, Becton
Group 2:
Section 1: (1) Newton – (2) Westwood – (3) Mahwah – (4) High Point – (5) Pequannock – (6) Kittatinny – (7) Ramsey – (8) Waldwick
Section 2: (1) Rutherford – (2) Mountain Lakes – (3) Verona – (4) Lyndhurst – (5) Glen Rock – (6) Hawthorne – (7) Newark Central – (8) Lenape Valley
Wild Cards: Madison, Hanover Park, Caldwell, Dumont, Hackettstown, Lodi
Group 3:
Section 1: (1) Ramapo – (2) River Dell – (3) Paramus – (4) Sparta – (5) Lakeland – (6) Pascack Valley – (7) Demarest – (8) West Milford
Section 2: (1) West Essex – (2) Summit – (3) Rahway – (4) Parsippany Hills – (5) Montville – (6) Voorhees – (7) South Plainfield – (8) Warren Hills
Wild Cards: Carteret, Teaneck, Bergenfield, Garfield
Group 4:
Section 1: Wayne Hills – (2) Old Tappan – (3) Morris Hills – (4) Morris Knolls Wayne Valley – (5) Mount Olive – (6) Wayne Valley – (7) Passaic Valley – (8) Northern Highlands
Section 2: (1) Phillipsburg – (2) Randolph – (3) Irvington – (4) Linden – (5) Colonia – (6) West Morris – (7) Cranford – (8) Orange
Wild Cards: Roxbury, Barringer, North Hunterdon, Woodbridge, Belleville
Group 5:
Section 1: (1) Montclair – (2) Clifton – (3) Ridgewood – (4) West Orange – (5) Livingston – (6) Hackensack – (7) Kennedy – (8) North Bergen
Section 2: (1) Piscataway – (2) Union – (3) Union City Elizabeth – (4) – Elizabeth East Orange – (5) East Orange Ridge – (6) Ridge Westfield – (7) Westfield – (8) Bayonne
Wild Cards: Bridgewater-Raritan, Passaic Tech, Passaic, Perth Amboy