South Plainfield-Delaware Valley follow

There is a good chance Delaware Valley will get another crack at South Plainfield in the Central Jersey Group II playoffs come February. Can the Terriers close the gap by then? Delaware Valley lost 10 of 14 bouts Thursday night at home as South Plainfield rolled 47-16. South Plainfield scored bonus victories in seven bouts.

"Hopefully we'll see them again and we can do it again," said South Plainfield head coach Kevin McCann. "It could go either way, there were a lot of close matches in there. Obviously we thought this would be much closer than this."

The Terriers won the Central Jersey Group II title last year, but lost to Kittatinny in the state group final. South Plainfield, beaten in the regular season by Del Val last year, went on to win the state Group III title.

The state team sectionals are Feb. 6 and 8 and the state group finals are Sunday, Feb. 11.

South Plainfield has won four state group titles, while Del Val has won eight. But unbeaten Hackettstown, a North Jersey, Section 2, Group II school, is having a memorable season and will pose a challenge for both.

"We're not out of it, but we also can't focus on the next time we wrestle; our schedule is too tough to just concentrate on them in the sectional finals," Delaware Valley coach Brent Conly said. "Our goal every year is to win the Group 2s and that hasn't changed."

South Plainfield has a busy week coming up. The Tigers start with a trip to unbeaten Hackettstown Monday night, then have a home match against Greater Middlesex Red Division foe Old Bridge Wednesday night followed by a big quad meet Saturday with North Warren and Southern Regional at Kittatinny Saturday.

Southern Regional was the state Group IV runnerup last year. Kittatinny won the Group II title and North Warren made the state Group I final four.