MHSAA Details XC, Swim/Dive Tourneys
October 2, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The Executive Committee of the Michigan High School Athletic Association has approved a series of modifications for this fall’s cross country and girls swimming & diving tournaments as part of efforts to reduce the possible opportunity for spread of COVID-19. The Committee also approved an expanded field for Lower Peninsula Girls Golf Finals made possible by a recent Executive Order announced by Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
The Executive Committee is comprised of officers of the larger Representative Council. The adjustments to these three sports’ tournaments received final approval during the Committee’s Sept. 30 meeting.
This season’s Lower Peninsula Cross Country Tournament will begin with an additional Pre-Regional round, which will divide traditional Regionals into smaller groups in order to limit field sizes per race site. A total of 18 Pre-Regional races per each of four Divisions will qualify the four top-placing teams and seven top individuals not on those teams to nine Regionals per Division. From Regionals, the top three teams and seven individuals not on those teams will advance to each of the Finals, which will be run Friday (Division 1 & 2) and Saturday (Division 3 & 4), Nov. 6-7, at Michigan International Speedway.
To again limit field size and mixing of schools, each Division of the Lower Peninsula Finals for both girls and boys will be run over two races – teams qualifying third from Regionals and all individual qualifiers will be in one section (or heat), with teams that qualified second or first at Regionals in a second section. Two Divisions – four girls and four boys races total – will be run each day of the Lower Peninsula Finals.
The only change for the Upper Peninsula Finals this fall is the three Divisions will be run at separate sites Oct. 24 – Division 1 at Marquette’s Presque Isle Park, Division 2 at George Young Recreational Complex in Iron River, and Division 3 at Pictured Rocks Golf Course in Munising. The format for Upper Peninsula Finals is unchanged from previous years.
Adjustments to this fall’s Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals were made to accommodate limits on individuals who may assemble together for indoor activities. All diving will take place Friday, Nov. 20, at three Lower Peninsula Finals sites to be determined. All qualifying divers will complete five dives, with the top 20 advancing to perform three more dives. From that second round, the top 16 will advance to perform their final three dives of the competition.
All swimming will be competed Saturday, Nov. 21, with timed championship races in every event instead of the traditional preliminaries and finals. Scores from the swimming and diving portions will be combined to determine final team finish.
The fields for the four Lower Peninsula Girls Golf Finals will expand to their traditional sizes after the Executive Committee previously approved a proposal to limit the fields due to outdoor gathering restrictions. With those gathering limitations eased Sept. 25 by Executive Order 183, Regionals will again qualify the top three teams and top three individuals not on those teams to Finals. As previously announced, the Girls Golf Finals will be contested this season with one 18-hole round instead of the traditional two rounds to eliminate any necessity of overnight trips. The four Girls Golf Finals will be played over Oct. 16-17 at the Forest Akers golf courses at Michigan State University.
Further details for all tournaments will be available on their respective sport pages of the MHSAA Website.
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.
MHSAA Winter Sports Underway with 65,000 Athletes Beginning Competition
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 5, 2023
With the first girls basketball games, wrestling matches and ski races joining the event schedule this week, an estimated 65,000 athletes will be competing across the 13 sports for which the Michigan High School Athletic Association sponsors postseason tournaments.
Girls basketball tipped off Monday, Dec. 4, and the first boys and girls wrestling meets may take place Wednesday, Dec. 6. The first girls and boys ski races may begin Saturday, Dec. 9, when they will join competition already underway in boys basketball, girls and boys bowling, girls competitive cheer, girls gymnastics, boys ice hockey, Upper Peninsula girls swimming & diving, and boys swimming & diving across both peninsulas.
The MHSAA winter schedule concludes this 2023-24 school year with the Girls Basketball Finals on March 23. This will be the first time since 2018-19 that the girls basketball tournament will finish the winter season, a switch made necessary by the start of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament March 22-23 and the possibility Michigan State University could host first-round games at the Breslin Center, where the MHSAA plays both its girls and boys basketball Semifinals and Finals.
Three more sports will incorporate changes this season related to MHSAA Tournament format or qualification.
For girls and boys bowling, Regionals will be conducted at eight sites – instead of the previous six – with each site qualifying to Finals its top two team finishers and the top seven singles for both girls and boys competitions. For the Team Bowling Finals, match play has been switched to a head-to-head, best-of-five Baker game format, whereas previously the format included regular games rolled by individual bowlers.
In girls gymnastics, an addition to criteria is expected to classify gymnasts more accurately as Division 1 (most skilled/experienced) or Division 2 for MHSAA Tournament individual competition. Athletes who have previously competed in a non-school event at either the Sapphire or Diamond Xcel levels would be required to compete at the Division 1 level for MHSAA postseason competition. These designations were added to other criteria used to determine an individual competitor’s division.
A change that led to much larger event fields at the Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals this fall is expected to produce the same at the LP Boys Swimming & Diving Finals this winter. Beginning this season, qualifying times have been determined based on the past five years of MHSAA race data, but also accounting for past numbers of qualifiers in each swim race – which should, as with the girls, allow for more boys to advance to the Finals in events where fields have not been full over the previous five seasons.
Additionally, the Competitive Cheer Finals will return to its traditional Friday-Saturday schedule, March 1-2 at McGuirk Arena at Central Michigan University, with Division 1 on Friday and Divisions 2-4 on Saturday.
This regular season, wrestlers have two more opportunities to compete. Teams are allowed two more dual meets (between two teams only, not to be converted into three or four-team meets), bringing the total allowed days of competition to 16 with no more than eight of those allowed for tournament-type events where a wrestler competes more than twice.
At those tournament-type events, wrestlers may now compete in up to six matches on one day of competition (as opposed to the previous five matches per day) – but an athlete may not wrestle in more than 10 matches over two consecutive days.
An adjustment to the awarding of free throws in basketball is likely to be the most noticeable in-game change for any winter sport this season. One-and-one free throws have been eliminated, and fouls no longer will be totaled per half. Instead, fouls are totaled and reset every quarter, and two free throws are awarded with the fifth foul of each quarter.
The 2023-24 Winter campaign culminates with postseason tournaments, as the championship schedule begins with the Upper Peninsula Girls & Boys Swimming & Diving Finals on Feb. 17 and wraps up with the Girls Basketball Finals on March 23. Here is a complete list of winter tournament dates:
Boys Basketball
Districts – Feb. 26, 28, March 1
Regionals – March 5, 7
Quarterfinals – March 12
Semifinals – March 14-15
Finals – March 16
Girls Basketball
Districts – March 4, 6, 8
Regionals – March 11, 13
Quarterfinals – March 19
Semifinals – March 21-22
Finals – March 23
Bowling
Regionals – Feb. 23-24
Finals – March 1-2
Competitive Cheer
Districts – Feb. 16-17
Regionals – Feb. 24
Finals – March 1-2
Gymnastics
Regionals – March 2
Finals – March 8-9
Ice Hockey
Regionals – Feb. 19-28
Quarterfinals – March 2
Semifinals – March 7-8
Finals – March 9
Skiing
Regionals – Feb. 12-16
Finals – Feb. 26
Swimming & Diving
Upper Peninsula Girls/Boys Finals – Feb. 17
Lower Peninsula Boys Diving Regionals – Feb. 29
Lower Peninsula Boys Finals – March 8-9
Wrestling – Team
Districts – Feb. 7-8
Regionals – Feb. 14
Finals – Feb. 23-24
Wrestling – Individual
Districts – Feb. 10
Boys Regionals – Feb. 17
Girls Regionals – Feb. 18
Finals – March 1-2
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.