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MHSAA 2023-24 School Year Classifications Announced
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 6, 2023
Classifications for Michigan High School Athletic Association elections and postseason tournaments for the 2023-24 school year have been announced, with enrollment breaks for postseason tournaments posted to each sport’s page on the MHSAA Website.
Classifications for the upcoming school year are based on a second semester count date, which for MHSAA purposes was Feb. 8. The enrollment figure submitted for athletic classification purposes may be different from the count submitted for school aid purposes, as it does not include students ineligible for athletic competition because they reached their 19th birthday prior to Sept. 1 of the current school year and will not include alternative education students if none are allowed athletic eligibility by the local school district.
All sports’ tournaments are conducted with schools assigned to equal or nearly equal divisions, with lines dependent on how many schools participate in those respective sports.
For 2023-24, there are 750 tournament-qualified member schools. Schools recently were notified of their classification, and sport-by-sport divisions were posted to the MHSAA Website today (April 6). MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said schools may not subsequently lower their enrollment figure. However, if revised enrollment figures are higher and indicate that a school should be playing in a higher division, that school would be moved up.
Five MHSAA Finals champions awarded so far during the 2022-23 school year are assigned to different divisions for 2023-24. Division 6 champion Grand Rapids West Catholic will play 11-player football in Division 5 this upcoming season. The Holland Christian boys soccer team will be moving into Division 2 after winning the Division 3 Final in the fall, and East Grand Rapids’ girls swimming & diving program is headed back to Lower Peninsula Division 3 after winning in LP Division 2 this past season. A pair of cross country champions are on the move – LP Division 4 boys champion Wyoming Potter’s House Christian to LP Division 3, and Upper Peninsula Division 3 girls champion Munising into UP Division 2 – and the Grass Lake boys bowling team will compete in Division 3 next winter after winning the Division 4 championship last month.
Also set to change divisions among Finals runners-up from head-to-head sports are Cadillac volleyball (Division 2 to D1), Ann Arbor Greenhills boys soccer (Division 4 to D3), Mendon 8-player football (Division 2 to D1) and three 11-Player Finals runners-up – Caledonia (Division 1 to D2), Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central (Division 2 to D3) and Muskegon (Division 3 to D2).
Visit the respective sport pages on the MHSAA Website to review the divisional alignments for all MHSAA-sponsored tournament sports. Click the “SPORTS” menu above to access the page for each sport, then the “Assignments” link on the selected sport page and then “DIVISION LIST” to see the 2023-24 division.
Traditional classes (A, B, C, D) – formerly used to establish tournament classifications – are used only for MHSAA elections. To determine traditional classifications, after all counts are submitted, tournament-qualified member schools are ranked according to enrollment and then split as closely into quarters as possible. For 2023-24, there are 187 member schools in Class A, Class B and Class C, and 189 member schools in Class D.
Effective with the 2023-24 school year, schools with 807 or more students are in Class A. The enrollment limits for Class B are 380-806, Class C is 177-379, and schools with enrollments of 176 and fewer are Class D. The break between Classes A and B decreased eight students from 2022-23, the break between Classes B and C decreased 11 students, and the break between Classes C and D is six students fewer than for the 2022-23 school year.
The new classification breaks will see 21 schools move up in Class for 2023-24 while 24 schools will move down:
Moving Up from Class B to Class A
Bay City John Glenn
Fowlerville
Garden City
Lansing Eastern
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s
Tecumseh
Moving Down from Class A to Class B
Detroit Henry Ford
Detroit Mumford
Harper Woods
Plainwell
Sault Ste. Marie
Spring Lake
Moving Up from Class C to Class B
Ann Arbor Greenhills
Grand Rapids Covenant Christian
Hartford
Ishpeming Westwood
Kent City
Mason County Central
Pinconning
Moving Down from Class B to Class C
Blissfield
Clawson
Clinton Township Clintondale
Detroit Northwestern
Elk Rapids
Fennville
Sanford Meridian
Stockbridge
Moving Up from Class D to Class C
Auburn Hills Oakland Christian
Benton Harbor Countryside Academy
Detroit Crocket Midtown Science & Medicine
Grand Traverse Academy
Martin
Munising
Rudyard
Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary
Moving Down from Class C to Class D
Eau Claire
Fowler
Jackson Prep
L’Anse
Marcellus
Merrill
Mesick
Morenci
Muskegon Heights Academy
St. Ignace
New Postseason-Eligible Tournament Schools in 2023-24
Waterford Oakside Prep
Enrollment Breaks by Classes – 2023-24
(Number of schools in parentheses)
Class A: 807 and above (187 schools)
Class B: 380 – 806 (187)
Class C: 177 – 379 (187)
Class D: 176 and below (189)
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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.