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Bowling, Boys Lacrosse Set Fan Records
October 10, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Bowling and boys lacrosse tournament events again drew record-breaking attendance totals during the 2018-19 school year as a total of 1,385,710 fans attended MHSAA postseason competitions for which attendance is recorded.
The MHSAA Bowling Tournament – including Regionals and Finals for girls and boys – set an attendance record for the eighth consecutive season last winter with 14,507 fans, including a record 10,124 for Regional competition. Boys lacrosse, which also begins postseason play at the Regional level, set a record for the third straight season this spring with 13,854 fans – with records also at the Regional level of 8,894 fans and Quarterfinal round with 1,911.
The MHSAA annually tracks attendance for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis – for which admission typically is not charged.
The 2018-19 grand total saw a decrease of just less than a half percent from 2017-18. While boys tournament event attendance was down 1.1 percent, or nearly 11,000 fans, girls tournament event attendance saw a 1.3-percent increase to 448,735, nearly 6,000 more fans than the year before.
A total of 17 sports saw increases in attendance for at least one round of tournament play. Three girls sports – basketball, competitive cheer and soccer – plus baseball saw increases in attendance for three rounds of the postseason. Girls volleyball, softball, boys basketball, football, ice hockey and both the team and individual wrestling tournaments saw attendance rise for at least two rounds of play compared to 2017-18.
Seven sports saw overall attendance increases from 2017-18. Girls Basketball, thanks in part to its best Regional attendance since 2001-02, was up 3.5 percent for the entire tournament with 164,166 fans. Cheer, with 27,697 fans for its postseason, was up 6.4 percent. Girls Soccer, with 27,689 fans, was up 1.5 percent for its entire playoffs.
Baseball saw overall postseason attendance increase 5.4 percent to 47,116 fans, and team wrestling was up 5.0 percent with 30,626 fans – including its highest total (15,089) for District competition since 2011-12. Girls and boys cross country – run together on the same days at the same sites – continued its recent surge with more than 19,000 total fans for the third straight season, its total of 19,799 last fall an increase of 1.1 percent from the previous year.
Despite a slight decrease in overall playoff attendance of 1.2 percent, football again drew the most fans of any MHSAA postseason with 348,585. That total was highlighted by a 12.7-percent increase at the Pre-District level for the 11-player tournament and a 22.8-percent jump for the Semifinal round, with 11 and 8-player games counted together. The Semifinals drew their most fans since 2014-15.
Boys basketball was the next most attended sport with 310,696 fans at postseason games, a decrease of just a quarter of a percent from 2017-18. The boys basketball attendance was highlighted by its best Regional turnout in four years and its best Quarterfinal attendance since 2012-13.
Basketball was the most attended girls sport for postseason play, with volleyball (105,128) also reaching six figures for the sixth straight year. Volleyball enjoyed its highest Regional and Quarterfinal attendance both since 2015-16.
![The Flint Beecher boys basketball team celebrates its Division 3 championship at Breslin Center.](/sites/default/files/2023-06/230623_champions_2H.png)
Four 1st-Time Title Winners Headline 2022-23 Parade of Champions
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 23, 2023
A total of 101 schools won one or more of the 128 Michigan High School Athletic Association team championships awarded during the 2022-23 school sports year, with four teams earning the first Finals championship in any sport in their schools’ histories.
Johannesburg-Lewiston celebrated its first MHSAA Finals team championship during the fall by winning the Lower Peninsula Division 4 girls cross country title. Taylor Trillium Academy earned its first during the winter, in Division 4 girls bowling. This spring, Buckley won its first Finals title, in Lower Peninsula Division 4 girls track & field, and Standish-Sterling earned the school’s first championship by clinching Division 3 softball.
A total of 20 schools won two or more championships this school year, paced by Marquette’s six won in girls and boys cross country, girls and boys swimming & diving and girls and boys track & field. Ann Arbor Pioneer, East Grand Rapids and Munising all were next with three Finals championships. Winning two titles in 2022-23 were Ann Arbor Greenhills, Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Bloomfield Hills Marian, Detroit Catholic Central, Flint Powers Catholic, Grand Rapids Christian, Hart, Hudson, Jackson Lumen Christi, Lansing Catholic, Manistique, Northville, Rochester Adams, Rockford and Traverse City West.
A total of 30 teams won first MHSAA titles in their respective sports. A total of 37 champions were repeat winners from 2021-22. A total of 17 teams won championships for at least the third-straight season, while eight teams extended title streaks to at least four consecutive seasons. The Lowell wrestling program owns the longest title streak at 10 seasons.
Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 team championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in remaining sports.
For a sport-by-sport listing of MHSAA champions for 2022-23, Click Here.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 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 1.3 million spectators each year.