Sharpened by OAA Red Schedule, Troy Becomes League's Latest to Win Finals Title
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
November 11, 2026
GRAND LEDGE — Technically, Troy won the Division 1 boys soccer title this past Saturday with a 2-1 win over Livonia Stevenson.
But the Colts probably felt like they also won a state championship when they captured the Oakland Activities Association Red title back in October.
It’s understandable, since it can’t be denied how powerful the OAA Red has been in recent years.
In four of the last five years, and five times since 2019, the Division 1 championship has been won by an OAA Red team – and the league might be on the verge of getting stronger.
With Northville, Novi, Davison and Grand Blanc set to join the OAA next year, the reclassified Red division should see at least one of those teams added to it, adding more muscle to a league that saw Rochester Adams win Division 1 titles in 2022 and 2024 and Troy Athens in 2019 and 2023.
“Seeing (Athens) win it a couple years ago and seeing Adams win it, that really put that fire in us and made us want to win it even more,” said Troy senior Ryan Wind.
The Colts actually did prove themselves different from those championship Adams teams and the Athens 2023 squad in a good way, since Troy became the first OAA Red school to win both a league and MHSAA Finals title in the same year since Athens did so in 2019.
“I knew it had to come,” Troy senior Kevin Garay said. “This is just a special group of guys, a special team and coaching staff. I knew this was the year.”
Make no mistake, playing in and conquering the challenging OAA Red schedule that included No. 7 Clarkston, No. 8 Seaholm, Athens, Oxford and Berkley made top-ranked Troy tough as nails going into the MHSAA Tournament.
Of note, Adams, ranked No. 5 in the state at regular season’s end, was in the OAA White this year, but will likely be back in the Red next fall.
“It’s the best league in the state in my opinion,” Troy head coach Adam Spinks said. “To play such tough competition week in and week out, when you hit the playoffs, it prepares you mentally and physically for those games.”
Troy’s District round of the state tournament was seemingly an OAA Red postseason tournament, with Athens, Berkley and Seaholm also in that bracket.
The Colts rightfully felt that if they could survive that, the path would be less rocky in Regionals and beyond.
Following a 4-2 win over Seaholm in the District Final, Troy was on its way.
“It’s the hardest league in the state, so it prepares you so well for the playoffs,” said Cole Cusmano, an important piece of Troy’s attack who had to miss the second half of the championship game win over Stevenson after suffering a foot injury during the first half.
“We definitely thought once we got past the District – and we were just taking it one game at a time – we knew we had our sights on something big this year.”
Troy certainly did, not only claiming its first Finals championship since 2003 but becoming just the 20th unbeaten champion in MHSAA history.
The big question over the offseason is how the OAA Red will officially be realigned for next year with four new members coming in. Northville – which fell to Livonia Steveson in overtime in District play – is a possibility to join the OAA Red and should add another powerhouse to the league.
It should no doubt make for an even more compelling regular season race next year, and the way things have gone over the last five, lead to an obvious conclusion: Whichever OAA Red team is the last one standing in next year’s playoffs should probably be considered the favorite to win the Division 1 title.
“It was exhausting,” Garay said of the OAA Red slate and tournament run. “It was really hard. But we went for it, and we earned it.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Troy’s Jack Bowen (10) and Niko Zhuli (8) celebrate Zhuli’s goal during Saturday’s Division 1 Final. (Middle) The Colts’ Kouta Cawood (11) makes a run at the goal. (Photos by Adam Sheehan/Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
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Field Hockey Debut, Tennis Finals Change Among Most Notable as Fall Practices Set to Begin
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 8, 2025
The addition of girls field hockey as a sponsored postseason championship sport and a revised schedule for Lower Peninsula Boys Tennis Finals are the most significant changes to fall sports as practices are set to begin Monday, Aug. 11, for an anticipated 100,000 high school athletes at Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools.
The fall season includes the most played sports for both boys and girls; 36,210 football players and 19,679 girls volleyball players competed during the Fall 2024 season. Teams in those sports will be joined by competitors in girls and boys cross country, field hockey, Lower Peninsula girls golf, boys soccer, Lower Peninsula girls swimming & diving, Upper Peninsula girls tennis and Lower Peninsula boys tennis in beginning practice next week. Competition begins Aug. 15 for cross country, field hockey, golf, soccer and tennis, Aug. 20 for swimming & diving and volleyball, and Aug. 28 for varsity football.
Field hockey is one of two sports set to make its debut with MHSAA sponsorship during the 2025-26 school year; boys volleyball will play its first season with MHSAA sponsorship in the spring.
There are 37 varsity teams expected to play during the inaugural field hockey season. There will be one playoff division, with the first MHSAA Regionals in this sport beginning Oct. 8 and the first championship awarded Oct. 25.
To conclude their season, Lower Peninsula boys tennis teams will begin a pilot program showcasing Finals for all four divisions at the same location – Midland Tennis Center – over a two-week period. Division 4 will begin play with its two-day event Oct. 15-16, followed by Division 1 on Oct. 17-18, Division 2 on Oct. 22-23 and Division 3 played Oct. 24-25.
Also in Lower Peninsula boys tennis, and girls in the spring, a Finals qualification change will allow for teams that finish third at their Regionals to advance to the season-ending tournament as well, but only in postseason divisions where there are six Regionals – which will be all four boys divisions this fall.
The 11-Player Football Finals at Ford Field will be played this fall over a three-day period, with Division 8, 4, 6 and 2 games on Friday, Nov. 28, and Division 7, 3, 5 and 1 games played Sunday, Nov. 30, to accommodate Michigan State’s game against Maryland on Nov. 29 at Ford Field.
Two more changes affecting football playoffs will be noticeable this fall. For the first time, 8-Player Semifinals will be played at neutral sites; previously the team with the highest playoff-point average continued to host during that round. Also, teams that forfeit games will no longer receive playoff-point average strength-of-schedule bonus points from those opponents to which they forfeited.
A pair of changes in boys soccer this fall will address sportsmanship. The first allows game officials to take action against a team’s head coach in addition to any cautions or ejections issues to players and personnel in that team’s bench area – making the head coach more accountable for behavior on the sideline. The second change allows for only the team captain to speak with an official during the breaks between periods (halftime and during overtime), unless another coach, player, etc., is summoned by the official – with the penalty a yellow card to the offending individual.
A few more game-action rules changes will be quickly noticeable to participants and spectators.
- In volleyball, multiple contacts by one player attempting to play the ball will now be allowed on second contact if the next contact is by a teammate on the same side of the net.
- In swimming & diving, backstroke ledges will be permitted in pools that maintain a 6-foot water depth. If used in competition, identical ledges must be provided by the host team for all lanes, although individual swimmers are not required to use them.
- Also in swimming & diving – during relay exchanges – second, third and fourth swimmers must have one foot stationary at the front edge of the deck. The remainder of their bodies may be in motion prior to the finish of the incoming swimmer.
- In football, when a forward fumble goes out of bounds, the ball will now be spotted where the fumble occurred instead of where the ball crossed the sideline.
The 2025 Fall campaign culminates with postseason tournaments beginning with the Upper Peninsula Girls Tennis Finals during the week of Sept. 29 and wrapping up with the 11-Player Football Finals on Nov. 28 and 30. Here is a complete list of fall tournament dates:
Cross Country
U.P. Finals – Oct. 18
L.P. Regionals – Oct. 24 or 25
L.P. Finals – Nov. 1
Field Hockey
Regionals – Oct. 8-21
Semifinals – Oct. 22 or 23
Final – Oct. 25
11-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 26
District Semifinals – Oct. 31 or Nov. 1
District Finals – Nov. 7 or 8
Regional Finals – Nov. 14 or 15
Semifinals – Nov. 22
Finals – Nov. 28 and 30
8-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 26
Regional Semifinals – Oct. 31 or Nov. 1
Regional Finals – Nov. 7 or 8
Semifinals – Nov. 15
Finals – Nov. 22
L.P. Girls Golf
Regionals – Oct. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11
Finals – Oct. 17-18
Boys Soccer
Districts – Oct. 8-18
Regionals – Oct. 21-25
Semifinals – Oct. 29
Finals – Nov. 1
L.P. Girls Swimming & Diving
Diving Regionals – Nov. 13
Swimming/Diving Finals – Nov. 21-22
Tennis
U.P. Girls Finals – Oct. 1, 2, 3, or 4
L.P. Boys Regionals – Oct. 8, 9, 10, or 11
L.P. Boys Finals – Oct. 15-16 (Division 4), Oct. 17-18 (Division 1), Oct 22-23 (Division 2), and Oct. 24-25 (Division 3)
Girls Volleyball
Districts – Nov. 3-8
Regionals – Nov. 11 & 13
Quarterfinals – Nov. 18
Semifinals – Nov. 20-21
Finals – Nov. 22
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.