By Donald J. Brower

In an effort to reduce the strain on the various wrestlers, The NJSIAA has announced it has pushed back the Group, District and Region tournaments one week. This is also in response to a delay in the State Wrestling Tournament at Boardwalk Hall.

"The rescheduling of this winter's team, district, and regional events was done out of concern for our student-athletes," NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko said in the statement. "Their well-being is always our main priority, and we all agreed that it was not appropriate for them to have to maintain peak condition for a 13-day period between the regional finals and the state championships. With this decision, we've trimmed that gap down to one week, which has always been the standard time gap during previous seasons."

The Tournament, traditionally scheduled for the first weekend of March, will be contested this year on March 8th-10th due to scheduling conflicts at the venue.Teams are eligible to add extra matches in the added week. After the contract for the venue expired last year, Boardwalk Hall booked a Lady Gaga concert for March 2, which would have been the second day of the states.

The tournaments will run on the following schedule. Team state tournament; Feb. 11, 13 and 15 with the team Group finals to be held on Feb. 17 in the Pine Belt Arena at Toms River South; Districts: Feb. 22 and 23; Regions: Feb. 27, March 1 and March 2; States: March 8-10.

Below is the local schedule for the district tournament.

District 1 @ Mount Olive: Hackettstown, Mendham, North Warren, West Morris

District 2 @ Hopatcong: Dover, Lenape Valley, Montville, Morris Catholic, Morris Hills, Morris Knolls, Randolph, Roxbury

District 3 @ Kittatinny: High Point, Jefferson Twp, Newton, Pop John, Sparta, Vernon, Wallkill Valley

District 4 @ West Milford: Butler, Kinnelon, Pequannock

District 9 @ Morristown: Boonton, Delbarton, Hanover Park, Mountain Lakes, Parsippany, Par Hills, Whippany Park

District 10 @Millburn: Chatham, Madison