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MHSAA Announces Revised Format for 2021 Bowling Tournaments
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
February 26, 2021
The Michigan High School Athletic Association has revised its 2021 girls and boys Bowling Regionals and Finals, scheduled for next month, in an effort to reduce the mixing of communities and spread of COVID-19.
Regional competition, traditionally a two-day event with team competition Friday and singles Saturday, will be a two-day competition still but with boys competing Friday, March 19, and girls Saturday, March 20. Instead of bowling separate competitions to determine qualifiers for the team and singles Finals, all Regional participants will bowl four regular games on their designated day, with those scores determining the Finals qualifiers for both formats.
No Baker games will be rolled at Regionals; instead, 20 regular games will be counted toward a team’s score. Those 20 regular games may be bowled four each by five bowlers or subs, with the maximum of four games per bowler. A bowler must roll four games to qualify for Finals in singles.
Two teams – instead of the traditional three – and 10 singles will advance to the MHSAA Finals to be bowled March 26-27. At the Finals, teams will compete Friday and singles Saturday, as in the past. The 10 singles qualifiers from Regionals also is the same number as usual. At the Finals, the traditional scoring for team competition of regular and Baker games, with qualifying and match play, will continue to be used.
Bowling the boys and girls on separate days for Regionals will allow host bowling centers to spread competitors out among twice as many lanes. Fewer team qualifiers for Finals also will limit congestion at those four sites.
Spectator limits at Regionals and Finals will be determined locally following Michigan Department of Health and Human Services orders and fire marshal capacity limits at centers. Spectators will not exceed one per participant.
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MHSAA Reports 2020-21 Participation; More than 240,000 Participants Counted Despite Pandemic
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 4, 2021
While COVID-19 surely played a part in reduced participation in sports at Michigan High School Athletic Association schools during the 2020-21 school year, a total of 244,012 participants continued to take part in athletics across the 28 sports for which the MHSAA sponsors postseason tournaments.
The overall MHSAA participation totals count students once for each sport in which they participate, meaning students who are multiple-sport athletes are counted more than once.
Generally, the MHSAA provides as part of its annual participation release a comparison of totals, both overall and per sport, to the previous school year. But a comparison of the 2020-21 overall participation total to that from 2019-20 cannot be considered relevant because the Spring 2020 season was canceled due to COVID-19 before the start of competition, which likely affected participation counts from those spring sports. Similarly, the Fall 2020 season saw a number of schools put some sports on hold for that year, including in the highest participation sport football, which also affected identifying participation trends in those sports. Enrollment reported by MHSAA member schools did see a 2.1-percent decrease from 2019-20, to 444,085 students overall.
The participation figures are gathered annually from MHSAA member schools to submit to the National Federation of State High School Associations for compiling of its national participation survey (although the NFHS has not compiled national surveys for 2019-20 or 2020-21 amid the COVID-19 pandemic). Results of Michigan surveys from the 2000-01 school year to present may be viewed on the MHSAA Website.
The following chart shows participation figures for the 2020-21 school year from MHSAA member schools for sports in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament:
BOYS |
GIRLS |
|||
Sport |
Schools (A) |
Participants |
Schools (A) |
Participants (B) |
Baseball |
656/11 |
16,035 |
- |
-/18 |
Basketball |
728/5 |
18,806 |
722 |
13,285/15 |
Bowling |
421/25 |
3,465 |
413 |
2,414/51 |
Competitive Cheer |
- |
- |
362 |
5,191 |
Cross Country |
667/4 |
8,372 |
667 |
7,248/16 |
Football -11 player |
543/103 |
30,630 |
- |
-/115 |
8-player |
104/18 |
1,737 |
- |
-/23 |
Golf |
531/51 |
6,075 |
358 |
3,585/108 |
Gymnastics |
- |
- |
102 |
613 |
Ice Hockey |
298/11 |
3,221 |
- |
-/13 |
Lacrosse |
174/8 |
4,497 |
121 |
2,777/13 |
Skiing |
121/0 |
818 |
115 |
778 |
Soccer |
504/16 |
13,129 |
486 |
11,130/60 |
Softball |
- |
- |
647 |
11,389 |
Swimming & Diving |
274/18 |
4,051 |
279 |
5,111/56 |
Tennis |
310/16 |
5,879 |
339 |
7,125/25 |
Track & Field |
702/0 |
17,390 |
692 |
12,739 |
Volleyball |
- |
- |
720 |
18,430 |
Wrestling |
491/158 |
7,296 |
- |
-/283 |
(A) The first number is the number of schools reporting sponsorship on the Sports Participation Survey, including primary and secondary schools in cooperative programs as of May 15, 2021. The second number indicates the number of schools that had girls playing on teams consisting primarily of boys.
(B) The second number indicates the number of additional girls playing on teams consisting primarily of boys and entered in boys competition.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,400 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.