In the 2017-18 season, New Jersey will crown, for the first time, four different state champions.
At the conclusion of the 2016-17 season, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association approved a pilot program that created a third group of public schools, Public C, which has been grouped by the size of the school.
"There were inquiries made from schools who wanted a third group to try to spread things out," tournament director Cory Robinson said in a May 5 article on NJ.com. "To be honest, there’s like 60 teams, give or take, and if you look at the other sports, there aren’t 30 teams in a bracket playing for a state championship. A lot of the other ones are a lot smaller and that was part of the idea."
The idea was to give even more teams an opportunity at competing for a state championship, and it might be a new group, but Public C will have a big group of contenders fighting for the inaugural championship.
