March 18, 2021 – By NJP

Here is a recap of the NJP Predictor for the first two days of the season:

Day 1 – Tuesday 3-16 42-11 79.3% (Complete)

Day 2 – Wednesday 3-17 25-6 80.6% (Not complete)

So we are used to picking winners at 8 out of 9. We are currently at 4 out of 5. We need to pick it up. Those 8 percentage points make up the difference between good and great. We may have to accept that world conditions, missing players, wearing masks, and other extreme volatilities may alter our expectations. But still focused on 85% as the bar.

The schedule has been a moving target lately with numerous cancellations due to new team protocols. We can’t imagine this will change any time soon so please forgive the empty games at the end of each night’s predictor. We are still using pre-season ratings for picks. We expect to have enough data for our first full ranking on Memorial Day weekend.

A few team shout outs from the first two days… Have to love what Sparta accomplished Tuesday by knocking off last years TOC finalist Mendham. Morris Catholic looks in mid season form. Kudos to Kent Place for taking down SPF yesterday in three sets. Best showing of the week so far goes to Demarest for cutting down Old Tappan on opening night. A big surprise for us was Cresskill hanging with last years Sectional winner Rutherford, bringing them to three sets. Either Cresskill is much better than anticipated or Rutherford is feeling the loss of last years all-world performer Jenna Rogers. Probably a bit of both. Williamstown, Southern, JP Stevens, Cherry Hill East, WWPS, and East Brunswick all off to solid starts.

And we love that Paterson Charter won their first game after a tough past few seasons. Congrats to PC!

For our daily “Snipe” great performances visit njpowerranking.com/snipes/

Picks for March 18 – Thursday UPDATED 10PM