Week-by-week football schedule available for CAL teams

By TOM WILLIAMS

The 2017 schedule of Cape-Atlantic League football teams in the West Jersey Football League is available online and an examination of the match-ups show only a few changes.

Since 2017 is the second year the CAL teams are playing in the WJFL this year’s schedule is pretty much the same as last year with just the locations reversed. For example, if you hosted Cedar Creek or St. Joseph last year on a Friday night, then this season you’ll be playing on Saturday in either Egg Harbor City or Hammonton.

But there are a few other changes.

The first happened last Thursday when Middle Township edged Steinert in a thriller in Cape May Court House. That game was played in August because Middle was supposed to play Pitman, which dropped varsity football. The only way to fill out the schedule was to play the game with Steinert early.

That also created a situation for Middle late in October. The original Pitman date and Middle’s bye week are back-to-back, meaning that the Panthers will have three full weeks between their games with Ocean City and Pleasantville.

Pleasantville was also effected by the Pitman decision. The Greyhounds scheduled Schalick as a replacement.

Last season the CAL schools, with the exception of Bridgeton, Lower Cape May, Cedar Creek and St. Joseph, started home games at 6 p.m. This year Absegami, Egg Harbor Township and Holy Spirit have generally moved back to the standard 7 p.m. start on Friday nights.

There are some exceptions.

Egg Harbor Township will host Vineland on a Saturday night. Lower Cape May will play both Ocean City and Delaware’s Cape Henlopen on Saturday afternoon. Oakcrest will start its game with Overbrook at 7:30 because of pre-game Wall of Fame ceremonies and the Falcons will play Highland on a Saturday afternoon. Ocean City will host West Windsor-Plainsboro South at 3 p.m. because of Yom Kippur, which starts at sunset. And the St. Joseph game with Allentown, which was played on the early weekend last year, has been moved to October.

During Thanksgiving Week, the Mainland-EHT game has been moved back to its traditional 10 a.m. Thursday start but the Oakcrest-Absegami game has moved to 6 p.m. on Wednesday. That is a switch from last year for those two games.

In 2018 it is expected that there will be massive changes as the WJFL not only adjusts its schedule but re-aligns it conferences, as well.

The complete week-to-week football schedule for CAL teams is available at http://www.primeevents.net/FootballSched2017.html.

That schedule includes links to all radio broadcasts and online video streaming of the games. CAL teams are again the best covered teams in the state. Coastal Broadcasting (98.7-The Coast and 106.3-The Shore) is originating more live high school football broadcasts this season than any radio company in New Jersey.