Co-Champs OK In NJ High School Soccer

Unlike the World Cup and other high level competitions, the New Jersey high school soccer play-offs accept a tie in the final and declare co-champions.  It happened to Haddonfield girls nearly 20 years ago and it happened to Haddon Township boys last week when they tied Verona, 1-1.

Chris Melchiorre of the Inquirer, one of the region's top high school sportswriters, took a look at the game and the concept of co-champions and concluded,  "It didn't look right. It didn't feel right.  But, yes, on balance, it was the right call."  I agree.

First of all, the only viable alternative would be the shootout .  This has been criticized endlessly over the years, but there are only so many minutes in players' legs and at some point more overtimes would be impossible as well as dangerous.  And in the games leading up to the final someone has to advance so the shootout is as good a method as any.

But in the last game of a competition?  "PKs would have just made the outcome that much harder on somebody,"  Melchiorre quoted Hawks senior goalie Kieran Burns as saying . You wouldn't want to see it end like that."

So by declaring co-champions you have twice as many kids who get to wear a state champion jacket and who 20 years from now can tell their kids that daddy won a state cup back when he played.

Melchiorre wrote, "The dejection on the players' faces was tough to watch last week when the game ended in a tie. But it lasted all of 15 minutes.

At the end of the day, the Hawks were, in fact, state champions.

And that's the feeling that will last a lifetime."