Commentary: Does the setup and seeding process of the CAL soccer tournaments need an overhaul?

Posted: October 26th 2024

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

One of the great developments in Cape-Atlantic League sports has been the introduction of league tournaments.

Basketball started it all and now in more recent years postseason CAL tournaments have popped up in numerous other sports.

Soccer is one of them. Currently, just six teams make the league tournament, with the top two seeds receiving byes in the first round.

The seeding process and perhaps even the overall setup, however, could probably use an overhaul.

In boys soccer this year, we saw an obvious No. 1 overall seed in St. Augustine Prep. The Hermits were undefeated going into the seeding meeting and were atop the American Conference, regarded as the league’s most competitive. And in girls soccer, Egg Harbor Township edged out Ocean City for the top seed. The two teams tied for the regular-season American Conference title.

But here’s where it got a little funky.

In boys soccer, Wildwood Catholic, in the midst of a wonderful season considering where the program was just a couple of years ago, was given the No. 2 seed. The Crusaders were 13-1-1 and were unblemished in United Conference games, so their resume was strong. Wildwood Catholic may have looked like a No. 2 seed according to the criteria that was used to determine seeding, which included conference record, total power points and other factors.

On the girls side, Pleasantville, another team enjoying success this fall after some recent lean years, won the United Conference and also had a league-best 13 wins at the time of the seeding meeting. The seeding criteria used placed the Greyhounds third for the tournament.

That criteria, though, is flawed.

In nearly all sports now, the CAL’s alignment is generally based on each program’s competitiveness. Many sports, including soccer, have a three-conference alignment where the programs that have proven to be the league’s elite in recent years are placed in the American Conference. The middle-of-the-road to good teams are slotted into the National Conference. And the rebuilding and traditionally weaker programs are dropped into the United Conference.

So by the nature of its setup, the CAL is basically telling everyone who follows soccer that the teams in the United Conference aren’t as good as the ones in the conferences above them.

So how, then, can the Wildwood Catholic boys be given a No. 2 seed? And the Pleasantville girls a 3 seed? It’s akin to giving the winner of a low- to mid-major conference like the Ivy League a No. 2 or 3 seed for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

This is not an indictment of Wildwood Catholic or Pleasantville. Both teams did a wonderful job against the league schedule they were each given, and emerged as conference champions. 

But when Wildwood Catholic’s boys stepped out of their conference recently, the Crusaders lost by a 13-0 aggregate to Absegami of the National Conference and Cedar Creek and Hammonton of the American Conference. Cedar Creek is in last place in the American Conference. Its win 7-0 over Wildwood Catholic was just its third of the season. Absegami is a .500 team from the National Conference. Hammonton is the second-place team in the American Conference. After beating Wildwood Catholic, 5-0, in the CAL semifinal round, the Blue Devils took St. Augustine Prep to extra time before suffering a 1-0 defeat in the CAL title game on Wednesday.

In the case of the Pleasantville girls, the Greyhounds promptly lost 4-0 to No. 6 Hammonton – just the second-place team in the National Conference – in the opening round of the CAL tournament. They then also dropped games by an 11-1 aggregate to Middle Township and Vineland, two American Conference teams that didn’t qualify for the CAL playoffs.

Some might argue that maybe the Wildwood Catholic boys and the Pleasantville girls teams didn’t deserve to be in the CAL playoff tournament. I don’t see it that way. The Crusaders and Greyhounds each won their conference, albeit the weakest of the league’s three. But winning a conference has to matter. Winning 13 games at the time of seeding as both teams did has to matter. They belong.

But the question is, should the winner of the United Conference be valued more than, for example, the third- or fourth-place team from the American Conference? Or the second- or third-place team from the National Conference?

Probably not.

With that in mind, here’s one person’s proposal to have more equitable CAL boys and girls soccer tournaments:

First, let’s add two more teams and take it from six to eight. It would be a difficult lift to ask soccer to have a larger tournament because of the limited number of games available for each team. And you also have a team or two from the CAL competing in the South Jersey Soccer Coaches Association Tournament each year so that also has to be taken into account. So you can’t do what basketball did recently and include every team in the league. And you probably can’t take it to 16 teams, either. It would be too many games and it would take too long to complete. With eight teams, you’re not adding an extra round – you’re just eliminating byes and you’re getting a couple more deserving teams in the field. And no one would need to play more than three games and the entire tournament could still be completed in five calendar days.

Second, since the league already, in theory, somewhat generally seeds the teams with its very alignment, then let’s reward those who’ve been placed in the more competitive conferences a bit more. If I were in charge, I’d make the qualifying process simple – the top four teams from the American Conference, the top two teams from the National Conference and the champion of the United Conference would automatically qualify. Then, one wild card team would be selected, with that team coming from any of the three conferences. It naturally would most likely come from a team in the American or National conferences. But it certainly doesn’t eliminate the possibility that, in a given season, the second-place team from the United Conference finds a way into the field.

In terms of seeding, the first-place team from the American Conference should automatically be given the No. 1 overall seed, which basically already happens as a matter of circumstance. I’d also guarantee the first-place team from the National Conference a first-round home game, meaning that team would be seeded anywhere from 2 through 4. The United Conference winner could get a first-round home game, but that would not be guaranteed. The United Conference winner, however, should not be seeded any higher than No. 4.

There are other ways to make the CAL soccer playoff tournaments more equitable. Going back to a two-conference format, for example, would create more head-to-head matchups among the league’s teams and, thus, give the committees that select the teams and make the seedings more concrete evidence of each team’s merit.

Either way, there should be a path to not only get more of the league’s best teams in the playoff tournament but also to have them seeded more fairly based on competitive balance.