Bowling, Boys Lacrosse Set Fan Records
August 17, 2018
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Two sports repeated in setting postseason attendance records during the 2017-18 school year, as 1,390,590 total fans attended Michigan High School Athletic Association 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 seventh consecutive season this past winter with 14,422 fans. Boys lacrosse, which also begins postseason play at the Regional level, set a record for the second straight season this spring with 12,759 fans – including a record 7,344 for Regional games.
The MHSAA annually tracks attendance for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis – for which admission typically is not charged.
The 2017-18 grand total of just under 1.4 million fans was a decrease of 6.8 percent from 2016-17. However, a couple of circumstances likely factored into the majority of that decline.
The first two weeks of 11-player football playoffs generally are among the highest-drawing events every school year – and last year’s saw a 19 percent decrease from 2016-17, as Pre-District games were played in unseasonably frigid weather across the Lower Peninsula and District Finals were played amid storms in many parts of the state.
Also, the Individual Wrestling Finals saw a 33 percent decrease in attendance after moving to Ford Field in Detroit from its previous home at The Palace of Auburn Hills. However, that decrease is misleading; the event went from three days and five sessions (with tickets required for each session) at The Palace to a two-day, three-session event at Ford Field. The average attendance per session this past winter actually increased by 892 fans from 2016-17.
Despite the District level decreases, football remained the highest-drawing tournament sport sponsored by the MHSAA, with 352,946 fans attending during the 2017 Playoffs including 60,435 combined for the 11 and 8-Player Finals – the most at that level of the tournament since the 2009 season. The MHSAA added a second division of 8-player playoffs last fall; however, that additional championship game contributed only a small amount to the overall 68-percent increase in attendance from the 2016 Finals.
Boys Basketball drew the second-most fans in 2017-18 – 311,494 – keyed in part by a 5-percent increase at the Regional level. Girls Basketball remained the most highly attended girls sport with 158,546 fans – including 104,243 at the District level, the second-highest total at that level of the tournament since 2009-10. Volleyball was the second-highest attended girls sport this past school year, with 105,414 fans making for an overall increase of nearly 3 percent from the 2016-17 tournament – with increases in attendance enjoyed at the District, Regional, Quarterfinal and Finals levels.
Two more girls sports saw increased attendance in 2017-18. Girls Swimming & Diving enjoyed increases at both the Diving Qualification and MHSAA Finals levels for a total of 4,946 fans – a 7-percent increase from 2016-17. Girls Gymnastics also enjoyed increased attendance at both levels of its postseason for a grand total of 2,314 fans – the most for that sport since 2002-03 and an increase of 7 percent as well from the previous season.
Two more sports also set MHSAA Finals records. The Softball Finals, held in conjunction with the Baseball Finals at Michigan State University, drew 6,860 fans to set a record for the second straight season (and baseball drew its most Finals fans since the 2006 season). The Team Wrestling Finals – contended for the first time at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo – enjoyed a 19-percent increase from 2016-17 with an audience of 9,469 fans that broke the record set at the conclusion of the 2004-05 season.
Also of note:
• Although girls lacrosse saw a slight dip in overall attendance to 5,538 fans this spring, that total still was the third-highest since the MHSAA began sponsoring a postseason tournament for the sport in 2004-05.
• Boys Soccer Districts drew 15,438 fans, the sport’s fourth straight increase at that level and the most to watch Districts since 2008-09.
• The Girls & Boys Cross Country Finals drew 10,445 fans, an increase of nearly 3 percent and the highest total in six seasons.
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 1.4 million spectators each year.
Scholar-Athlete Finalists Announced
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 25, 2013
The 120 finalists for the Michigan High School Athletic Association's Scholar-Athlete Award for the 2012-13 school year have been announced.
The program, which has been recognizing student-athletes since the 1989-90 school year, will honor 32 individuals from MHSAA member schools who participate in at least one sport in which the Association sponsors a postseason tournament. Farm Bureau Insurance underwrites the Scholar-Athlete Award, and will present a $1,000 scholarship to each recipient. Since the beginning of the program, 576 scholarships have been awarded.
Scholarships will be presented proportionately by school classification, with 12 scholarships to be awarded to Class A student-athletes, six female and six male; eight scholarships will be awarded to Class B student-athletes, four female and four male; six scholarships will be awarded to Class C student-athletes, three female and three male; and four scholarships will be awarded to Class D student-athletes, two female and two male. In addition, there also will be two at-large honorees which also are part of the general judging process, may come from any classification, and are designated by their school at the time of entry.
Every MHSAA member high school could submit as many applications as there are scholarships available in its classification, and could have more than one finalist. Saline has five finalists this year, while Kalamazoo Hackett and Muskegon Mona Shores have three. Eleven schools each had two finalists: Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard, Comstock Park, Grosse Ile, Hillsdale Academy, Macomb Dakota, Okemos, Oxford, Portland, Rock Mid-Peninsula and Sand Creek.
Multiple-sport participation remains the norm among applicants. The average sport participation rate of the finalists is 2.48, while the average of the application pool was 2.16 – both within a tenth of last year’s rates in those categories. There are 59 three-plus sport participants in the finalist field, and all but one of the 28 sports in which the MHSAA sponsors postseason tournaments are represented.
Of 409 schools which submitted applicants, 54 submitted the maximum allowed. This year, 1,675 applications were received. All will be presented with certificates commemorating their achievement. Additional Scholar-Athlete information, including a complete list of scholarship nominees, can be found on the MHSAA Website.
The applications were judged by a 66-member committee of school coaches, counselors, faculty members, administrators and board members from MHSAA member schools. Selection of the 32 scholarship recipients will take place in early February. Class C and D scholarship recipients will be announced on February 5; Class B scholarship recipients will be announced on February 12, and Class A scholarship recipients will be announced on February 19. All announcements will be made on the MHSAA Website.
To honor the 32 Scholar-Athlete Award recipients, a ceremony will take place during halftime of the Class C Boys Basketball Final, March 23, at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing.
To be eligible for the award, students must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 (on a 4.0 scale), and previously have won a varsity letter in at least one sport in which the MHSAA sponsors a postseason tournament. Students also were asked to respond to a series of short essay questions, submit two letters of recommendation and submit a 500-word essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Farm Bureau Insurance, one of Michigan's major insurers, has a statewide force of more than 400 agents serving more than 380,000 Michigan policyholders. Besides providing life, home, auto, farm, business and retirement insurance, the company also sponsors life-saving, real-time Doppler weather tracking systems in several Michigan communities.
2012-13 Scholar-Athlete Award Finalists
BOYS CLASS A
Marcus William Barnett, St Clair Shores Lake Shore
Connor James Bos, Holland
Andrew Camp, Midland Dow
Bryan Condra, Hartland
Jarrod Eaton, St. Johns
Tristan Eggenberger, Okemos
Alex Fauer, Macomb Dakota
Thomas Greidanus, Grand Rapids Christian
Kalvis Hornburg, Traverse City Central
Reed Hrynewich, Muskegon Mona Shores
Austin Jones, Bay City Central
Tyler Scott Kemerer, Saginaw Heritage
Anthony Lamus, Saline
Jacob J. Presto, Orchard Lake St Mary's
Charles Robert Proctor, Bay City Western
David Read, Midland Dow
Harrison Schurr, Jenison
Jeremy Simon, Richland Gull Lake
Jonathan Sollish, Berkley
Thomas Spicuzza, Oxford
Jason Vander Horst, Milford
Kevin W. Walsh, Detroit Catholic Central
Pierce Watson, Lowell
Adam Whitener, Saline
GIRLS CLASS A
Kristy Allen, East Grand Rapids
Casie Ammerman, Ann Arbor Huron
Jacqueline Burke, Troy
Francesca Ciaramitaro, Grosse Pointe North
Lara Fawaz, Dearborn
Kayla Giese, Macomb Dakota
Morgan Alexandria Gilliam, North Farmington
Kristin Nicole Green, Saline
Sarah Gutknecht, Farmington
Kelly Hall, Saline
Hailey Hrynewich, Muskegon Mona Shores
Jessica Kalbfleisch, Traverse City West
Jillian Klein, Muskegon Mona Shores
Brooke Kovacic, Oxford
Teresa LaForest, St. Joseph
Elizabeth Michno, Macomb L'Anse Creuse North
Kelly Raterink, Zeeland East
Roxanne Raven, Okemos
Kerigan Riley, Livonia Churchill
Haley Schaafsma, Riverview
Carley Serowoky, Waterford Kettering
Kendall Tamler, Birmingham Seaholm
Reinie Thomas, Portage Central
Lindsay Walter, Saline
BOYS CLASS B
Michael Azzopardi, Detroit Country Day
Michael Broderick, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep
Brice Brown, Ionia
Michael Chickeral, Flat Rock
Thomas D. Finch, Otsego
Alec Robert Fisher, Battle Creek Harper Creek
Mark Gibson, Freeland
Patrick Gifford, Haslett
Andrew Hammond, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Eastern
Michael Heinrich, Ludington
Luke James Hurst, Ovid-Elsie
Matthew Liu, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood
Adam Olszewski, Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard
Scott Parkinson, Grayling
Keeton Thayer Ross, Grosse Ile
Ryan Schall, Comstock Park
GIRLS CLASS B
Brittany Beeler, Spring Lake
Ashley M. Carney, Jackson Northwest
Kelsi Caywood, Sturgis
Amanda Ciancio, Comstock Park
Morgan Kathleen Cinader, Goodrich
Mary Emington, Cadillac
Hannah C. Engle, Adrian
Nicole L. Green, Portland
Haley June Obetts, Wayland Union
Molly Oren, Hamilton
Catherine Polgar, Grosse Ile
Emily Quinn, Portland
Florence Ann Sobell, Croswell-Lexington
Anjali Sood, Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard
Megan Taylor, Houghton Lake
Shelby Walsh, Livonia Ladywood
BOYS CLASS C
Brian Christopher Aldrich, Kalamazoo Hackett
Jesse Anderson, Union City
Kenner Broullire, Manistique
Jesse Corbat, Breckenridge
Parker Eldred, Blanchard Montabella
Ashwin Fujii, Ann Arbor Greenhills
Zachary A. Kerr, Saugatuck
Connor Lockman, Royal Oak Shrine Catholic
Mike O'Brien, Maple City-Glen Lake
Elliott Rains, Sand Creek
Quinton Rice, Marcellus
Luke Schaffner, Clinton
GIRLS CLASS C
Alyssa R. Briolat, Ubly
Kara Craig, Schoolcraft
Lindsey Dopheide, Lawton
Margaret Elizabeth Durbin, Boyne City
Macayla Geiner, Hart
Natalie Perry, Sand Creek
Theresa Pickell, Reese
Abigail Radomsky, Kalamazoo Hackett
Kylei Ratkowski, Bronson
Faith Schroeder, Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary
Grace Smith, Kalamazoo Hackett
Nicole Winter, Watervliet
BOYS CLASS D
Charles Barchett, Watervliet Grace Christian
Charles A. Blood, Hillsdale Academy
Brett Branstrom, Rock-Mid Peninsula
Matthew R. Katz, Tekonsha
Alexander G. Knight, Lake Linden-Hubbell
Francisco Jay Noyola, Lansing Christian
Joseph Samuel Paquette, Munising
Hunter Selby, Genesee Christian
GIRLS CLASS D
Anna Marie Couture, Posen
Sarah Cullip, St. Ignace
Erica LeClaire, Dollar Bay
Elyse Kathleen Lisznyai, Hillsdale Academy
Elena Victoria Luce, Mason County Eastern
Christina Smith, Gaylord St. Mary
Kari L. Steenwyk, Ellsworth
Krysta M. VanDamme, Rock-Mid Peninsula