Today in the MHSAA: 1/25/19

January 25, 2019

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

A number of the Lower Peninsula’s top swimming & diving teams faced off Thursday on a night that also saw a wrestling league title awarded and notable results in girls and boys basketball.

1. Boys Swimming & Diving: No. 2 Birmingham Groves edged No. 4 Midland Dow and No. 5 Rochester Adams in a tri meet of top teams from Lower Peninsula Division 2 – Midland Daily News

2. Wrestling: Onaway finished its North Star League championship run with wins over Mio and Oscoda – WBKB

3. Boys Basketball: Wyoming Potter’s House Christian continued a major surge by handing Marcellus Howardsville Christian its first defeat, 85-69 – Three Rivers Commercial-News

4. Boys Swimming & Diving: LPD3 No. 1 Holland Christian won a tri against No. 6 Grand Rapids Christian and Division 2 No. 10 Holland – Holland Sentinel

5. Wrestling: Division 1 No. 2 Brighton downed No. 6 Westland John Glenn 58-8 in a matchup of Kensington Lakes Activities Association division champs – Livingston Daily Press & Argus

6. Girls Basketball: Carson City-Crystal took over first place alone in the Mid-State Activities Conference with a 31-27 win over Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart – MI Sports Now

7. Boys Basketball: Big Rapids Crossroads avenged its lone loss with a 53-47 win over Manistee Catholic Central that put Crossroads in first alone in the West Michigan D League – Big Rapids News

8. Girls Basketball: Richland Gull Lake broke a three-game losing streak by handing Comstock just its second defeat of the season, 48-39 – Kalamazoo Gazette

9. Boys Swimming & Diving: LPD3 No. 3 Spring Lake earned an impressive 102-84 win over LPD2 honorable mention Grand Rapids Northview – Grand Haven Tribune

10. Girls Basketball: West Bloomfield held on to first place alone in the Oakland Activities Association White with a 63-53 win over Oxford – Oakland Press

Also of note …

Softball: Past Essexville Garber standout Katy Ratajczak was honored for her life-saving work last spring as she and her family traveled home from her final high school softball game – Bay City Times

In Memoriam: Chip Mundy (1955-2023)

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

August 16, 2023

When the MHSAA took a significant step in telling the stories of school sports with the introduction of the Second Half website in 2012, Chip Mundy was a natural to lend his expertise after a career doing the same in the Jackson area.

He always took special care in searching out the human interest side of our “stories behind the scores” – and today we remember that dedication as we mourn his death Monday. He was 68.

Chip MundyMundy was a graduate of Jackson Parkside and then served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86. He then became a fixture in high school sports coverage as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen Patriot from 1986-2011.

Mundy was one of the original correspondents when Second Half took on a regional component beginning with the 2015-16 school year, thoughtfully providing biweekly features from the “Southeast & Border” area that includes Jackson, Ann Arbor, Monroe and the host of smaller communities north of the Michigan/Ohio line. Before the beginning of 2H’s “Region Reports,” Mundy also was among the first to begin producing coverage of MHSAA Finals for the site as Second Half started in part with a mission of covering all MHSAA championship events.

He admittedly ended up reporting on some sports he’d rarely or never covered before, and admittedly often wrote a little longer than he’d intended – but in his own words, because “there were so many stories” or “the story was so good.”

Click to read many of his features for the Second Half website.