NJSIAA Chief Operating Officer Colleen Maguire said on Thursday teams will compete for sectional championships this fall, and she doubled down on “buying the hardware” in an update over how the organization is proceeding with scholastic sports.

The NJSIAA had previously said there were approximately two weeks of time per sport allotted for a postseason option that would conclude with at most a sectional championship. The NJSIAA is not planning on holding state championships in the fall or winter as the state continues dealing with the coronavirus.

Official practices are set to begin Sept. 14 and competition around Oct. 1. Postseason tournaments are scheduled to run between Nov. 13 and Nov. 22 for all sports except girls tennis, which will occur from Oct. 24 to Oct. 31.

“Postseason plans for each sport are being planned by the committees,” said Maguire. “They will at least be a regional championship at minimum. They are still evolving. I do plan to buy hardware for those games.”

When the original plan was announced for two-week postseasons over the summer, football wasn’t necessarily slated for a sectional championship. There was a discussion of teams being placed in four-team postseason pods but without the finality of a true group champion.

Now, there seems to at least be the possibility of the four top teams in each group being aligned for a sectional title. The NJSIAA planned to allow all teams which wanted to participate in the postseason to do so, but obviously can’t do so in a traditional format with football.

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“Football we’re waiting to see, first, who is playing football,” said Maguire. “Once we know the population of teams playing we might revert back to a sectional alignment and then figure out how to frame the sectionals for any team that wants to participate.

“Football is still an outlier from the other spots. It’s going to be a little bit different because of the nature you can only play two games. Cross country is an outlier as well. (Assistant director) Bill Bruno is working hard to space out his sectional meets. We have third-party facilities so we’re at their mercy, but he’s working hard to provide adequate times and dates to have sectional championships.”

Football only sent four teams per section to the playoffs until 1998 when the field was increased to eight teams.

Bill Evans can be reached at bevans@njadvancemedia.com. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.