September 9, 2022
At NJP, we believe high school sports are a privilege and every student who participates should get the opportunity to be recognized for their contribution to their teams success. In past years, the idea of paying to access high school sports data was just never a consideration. The world continues to change and evolve and many news agencies and video platforms are now subscription based in addition to posting advertising banners and other forms of paid services. We are a volunteer organization and rely on our community to help give heads up and insights on interesting story lines or players achievements. It a passion play rather than a for-profit business. But we still implore our news agencies to make high school sports information free of charge.
We signed up this past week for one of the paid video services that are available to watch high school volleyball games live or archived. As NJ high school programs continue to grow, it is not possible to view a high quantity of games on the ground as in the past, especially with NJ HS volleyball programs now over 325 for the girls. It’s been a pretty major challenge for us as we have attempted to view games as they happen or after the fact. Here are some of the challenges we encountered and would love to get some feedback from the NJ volleyball community on their experiences. Please send feedback to njpowerranking@gmail.com or dm us through social channels.
- Paying a monthly or yearly access fee of substantial amounts was our first challenge
- Accessing some of the games was a challenge with a message that read unable to connect with site or game delayed, please stand by.
- One game feed had the left side of the screen and the right side of screen not synced.
- Some games dropped off during the broadcast and then never returned.
This is one of the reasons we promote the free live feeds that some of the schools do but it still only covers half of the squads currently. It appears school administrators may have a preference to outsource this service and share in the profits generated from the activities. Our hope is to build awareness around the fact of making high school sports information free to all who crave this information.
The second night of the season is now in the books with some games scores and information still being processed. It’s been an educational two days thus far with a number of surprises as well as affirmations of preseason assumptions.
During the preseason, NJP focused much of its attention on returning varsity players from last season. These players will normally represent 60% of the impact players for the new season. The remaining new players come from freshman as well as freshman, sophomores and juniors from last season who have moved up from JV to varsity levels. Many of the JV players are on teams that were filled with seniors and basically have to wait their turn to break onto the varsity squad. Some of these players are top-notch club players. Part of our early season focus is to identify these “new to varsity” players and raise the level of awareness of the impact they may have on their school teams. So stay tuned for that analysis as the season progresses.
NJP continues its “Faces of NJ Volleyball” series with daily additions… maybe you will be tomorrow’s victim? 2022 Faces link is https://njpowerranking.com/njp-faces-of-2022/
It will take about two weeks to collect enough data to be statistically significant for the 2022 ratings and rankings. We will commence our nightly “Predictor” game selections at that point.
The division standings are looking much different than last season. See all the changes here: https://njpowerranking.com/2022/09/04/division-realignments-for-2022/
Our blog on division alignments sheds a bit more info on the changes as well as predictions on division winners at https://njpowerranking.com/2022/09/05/division-realignment-2022-blog-predictions/
We also have many new teams for the 2022 season and state playoff groups and sections have been changed and modified. You can see all the changes here as well as predictions for each group: https://njpowerranking.com/2022/09/05/section-and-group-revisions-for-2022/
We also encourage you to complete your own predictions for division winners in the posts related to each conference. We will be holding open these surveys for another week and then shutting down access. We will publish the names of all the fans who selected the correct winner for each division at the end of the season. You can access these surveys on the home page with individual posts for each Conference.
Friday night action highlights:
Mount Olive is quietly 2-0 with wins over Morris Knolls and an improved Parsippany Hills. Senior pin hitter Danielle Przybyszewski has been on fire as the seasons opens, already notching 17 kills. But defense has been the Marauders lynch pin with Isabella Acevado already lifting 31 digs in the two matches and sophomore Emily Fusiarz right behind her with 20. Fusiarz has been awesome at setter quarterbacking Mt. Olive with 33 helpers and two 3-set wins.
Roxbury got back on its winning track but were pushed to three sets by Randolph. It’s worth noting that Victoria Latino has not been in the lineup for the first two matches.
Dayton has started the season so strong fired by outsides Sam Janker and Meghan Kreinberg who have each posted 15 kills in 2 matches and the all-around play of Kate Sousa at setter. Tomorrow they run into the Union Catholic Vikings and we will see if they can keep pace.
Donovan Catholic opened up their season today with a straight set win over Jackson Liberty. Macayla Lindner and Shantel Starling were the stars today for the Griffins as they combined for 11 kills, a block, 7 digs and 4 aces.
NJP’s #1 team Bogota is off to a quick 2-0 start with an impressive win over St. Mary’s Rutherford. Ash Caviness is already up to 30 kills in two days and Mia Pimentel had another all-around fantastic performance with 24 helpers, 4 kills, 2 blocks, and 2 aces. Senior Angelina Buhler is also off to a hot start. No Gyanna Hernandez so far is worth noting.
The Montgomery Cougars are now 2-0 after a 3-16 season in 2021. A super tough schedule lays ahead and we will see if Nia Ipeker, Georgia Wess, and crew can keep the momentum going.
Jordyn Hamlin looked sharp as Southern opened their season with a solid win over Central regional in straight sets. We expect Southern to be one of the main forces at the shore.
Mainland hammered Hammonton in straight sets limiting them to just 23 points. Erica Reis takes over a squad that went 21-2 last season.
The battle of Brick was all Township today as they prevailed over the Brick Memorial Mustangs in straight sets. Hailey O’Neill had 8 kills and Gabby Kaminski had 12 assists in the win.
