Today In The MHSAA: 3/17/21

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

March 17, 2021

Major matchups of league leaders Tuesday were capped off by conference title celebrations as the final week of the basketball regular season, along with the first week of the hockey postseason, rolled on.

1. Girls Basketball: Standish-Sterling clinched the Tri-Valley Conference 10 title by handing Saginaw Nouvel its first loss, 40-37 – Bay City Times

2. Girls Basketball: Kent City clinched its eighth straight league title, downing Morley Stanwood 68-36 in the Central State Activities Association Silver – WOOD TV

3. Boys Basketball: Battle Creek Pennfield clinched its first league title since 2003, downing Coldwater 44-41 in a matchup of leaders in the Interstate 8 Athletic Conference – Battle Creek Enquirer

4. Girls Basketball: Muskegon Western Michigan Christian’s 49-34 win over Ludington created a shared championship for those two in the Lakes 8 Conference – Local Sports Journal

5. Girls Basketball: Midland Dow clinched the Saginaw Valley League championship with a 61-34 win over Grand Blanc – WJRT

6. Boys Basketball: Rockford claimed the Ottawa-Kent Conference Red title outright with a 55-48 win over Holland West Ottawa – Grand Rapids Press

7. Girls Basketball: Byron Center Zion Christian clinched the Alliance League title outright with a 52-21 win over Kentwood Grand River Prep – FOX 17

8. Boys Basketball: Monroe Jefferson’s Jason Alston became the second player in school history to go over 1,000 career points during an 85-75 win over Ann Arbor Central Academy – Monroe News

9. Hockey: No. 7 Traverse Bay Reps advanced in Division 1 Regional hockey with a 3-1 win over Grand Haven – MI Sports Now

10. Boys Basketball: Okemos came back from 14 down after three quarters to defeat DeWitt 60-57 in overtime of a Capital Area Activities Conference Blue semifinal – WLNS

Also of note …

Girls Basketball: From Monday, Jenna Dove became the first Vestaburg player to go over 1,000 career points, scoring 19 against Carson City Crystal – Mount Pleasant Morning Sun

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.