AFTER 22 YEARS, MERCER COUNTY TOURNAMENT IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

Back in 1981, the athletic directors of schools in Mercer County, N.J., got together to create a formula for a single elimination mid-season tournament for its field hockey, soccer, basketball, baseball, and softball teams, similar to the FA Cup in England.

It would be a tournament where fans could throw out the records of both teams, where a lowly regarded team with a poor record could knock off a state champion, and where public and private schools could meet on equal footing.

Through the 1990s, the Mercer County field hockey tournament was the only one of single-elimination team tournaments that was played in the autumn.

But in 2000, as the Colonial Valley Conference expanded with the addition of Allentown and the split of the two schools in West Windsor-Plainsboro, the MCT was put on hiatus for three years.

In 2003, the MCT was revived as the CVC was remade into three divisions, allowing the public-school teams room within their schedules to play the tournament. It also added a unique component for the in-season tournament: guaranteed games. Each of the 14 schools are guaranteed at least three matches under the new format.

The MCT has featured games with high drama and competitiveness, as well as top seeds falling like rows of corn in front of the combine.

In 1997, for example, the team which should have walked away with the title, Princeton Day School, was knocked out in the quarterfinal round by Princeton High School. The Little Tigers then went on one of the tournament's great hot streaks, making it to the championship game.

The opponent was The Lawrenceville School, a team which had defined MCT excellence since the school went co-educational in 1987. The Big Red was not highly seeded, but had come through brilliantly in its games with West Windsor-Plainsboro and Steinert.

In the championship game, Princeton held its own with Lawrenceville, even hitting a post with eight minutes left to go. However, the Big Red was able to get a goal with 52 seconds remaining to pull out a 1-0 win in the first MCT final ever played on artificial turf.

There have been several other amazing moments in MCT history. Here are a few of them:

1983: The first overtime in an MCT final also wound up being the first tie. Lawrence and Hopewell Valley played to the 1-1 draw. This championship was also the first which had to go through an opening round, since 11 teams entered. None of the six teams which had to play a first-round contest made it to the final.

1988: Lawrenceville, in its second season of field hockey, was in its second final. Having played to a tie the previous season, the Big Red were able to take home the win in overtime, as Suzy Dwyer nailed a penalty stroke three minutes into the second extra session.

1990: Much had been made of West Windsor-Plainsboro and The Hun School in the championship game, because of the teams' high-powered offenses. However, there was a lot of defense played on both sides, and it resulted in a 1-1 tie.

1992: The MCT comes of age in the quarterfinal round. Three overtime games seal the reputation of the tournament as one which is not only exciting, but unpredictable. Even top-seeded Notre Dame had to go to overtime in order to beat back the challenge of ninth-seed Princeton Day School.

1996: The Mercer County Tournament welcomes another team into the fold. The Peddie School has had famous athletes in rowing, football, and swimming, but never in field hockey -- at least, until that season. Peddie enters the tournament for only the third time and wins it on a Katie Whalen goal in the second overtime.

1998: Princeton duplicates its Cinderella story, making it to the finals from the 10th seed. But the clock struck midnight again, as crosstown rival Princeton Day School nailed four goals into the cage. It was the single most dominating performance by one attack player in the previous 17 MCT finals.