Absegami Football Expected to Move Up to Group V

The Absegami High School football team's playoff chances have increased. The same goes for all the public school teams in the Garden State.

and add a Group V by a vote of 22-5-2 at its meeting in Robbinsville on May 9.

The list of Group V schools won't be official until the NJSIAA receives enrollment numbers in June, but it is believed that Absegami will move up from Group IV.

The proposal also makes it possible for teams with losing records to qualify for the tournament as long as they have attained enough power points to finish among the top eight teams in the section.

"Honestly I wasn't for or against it," Absegami football coach Dennis Scuderi said. "I've just ready probably what everybody has read. I just focus on taking care of our own business here, but I'm not opposed to it."

"This creates a greater opportunity for schools and for student-athletes," NJSIAA Assistant Director Jack DuBois, who is in charge of football, told Patch on May 9. "It increases the number of teams playing in the playoffs from 128-160. At the same time, it eliminates 16 consolation games that schools didn't want to play anyway."

During the 2011 season, Group IV South included teams with enrollment as low as 1,176 and as high as 1,946.

It is expected that schools will now compete with other schools much closer in enrollment.

The groups will now include 15 teams instead of 19 teams, which means that more than half the schools will make the playoffs.

"I think we play one of the more challenging schedule, and this allows some flexibility to get in," Scuderi said. "We still have to beat other (teams in our section)."

According to Scuderi other Cape-Atlantic schools who will be Group V next season are Atlantic City, Egg Harbor Township, Millville and Vineland.

Rival and district sister school Oakcrest will most likely be a Group IV school.

The biggest impact for the Braves is that certain schools they met in the playoffs in the past will no longer be in their section.

"You always like the rivalries between teams," Scuderi said. "We haven't played Shawnee since I've been here, but I would have liked to have gone up there and play them or have them come down here and play, We played the other schools in their district, We scrimmage and played Cherokee the last three years and we played Lenape in a consolation game three years ago."

Scuderi also likes that the Group V winner in 2012 will be making history.

"At the end of the day we are all competing for the same thing," he said. "I like that there will be the first Group V champion. To be the first one in state history gives us something to look to."