Watch Regionals Live on MHSAA.tv, FSN
November 11, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Regional play in two MHSAA tournaments will be featured this week on MHSAA.tv and FoxSportsDetroit.com with 10 games in volleyball and football.
Volleyball
Regional Semifinal coverage takes place today at two locations (coverage available with subscription):
Class A at Mason
DeWitt v. Ann Arbor Huron, 5 p.m.
Mason v. Portage Central, 7 p.m.
Class C at Morley-Stanwood
Shelby v. Morley-Stanwood, 6 p.m.
Ravenna v. Laingsburg, 8 p.m.
Football
MHSAA.tv also will cover two football playoff games live Saturday in advance of covering 12 Semifinal games on Nov. 22.
Here’s this week’s Regional Final schedule (with subscription):
- Division 1 – Clinton Township Chippewa Valley at Detroit Cass Tech, 1 p.m.
- Division 6 – Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central v. Jackson Lumen Christi at Withington Stadium, 7 p.m.
A Day Pass subscription to MHSAA.tv is $9.95. A Month Pass subscription is $14.95, enabling purchasers to watch all of this week’s action plus two more weeks of coverage of the Girls Volleyball Tournament, weekly Football Playoff coverage, and the Preliminaries and Finals of the Lower Peninsula Girls Swimming & Diving Finals.
All events become available for free on demand viewing three days after the date of the contest.
NEW: Subscribers can clip highlights from on-demand events and share them with friends and fans through Facebook, Twitter or via email.
Click the box at right to learn how to capture favorite moments and share the excitement.
Prep Zone
It’s the fourth season for the popular PrepZone on FoxSportsDetroit.com, which will provide free live coverage of four football playoff games again Friday:
- Division 1 – Canton at Saline
- Division 3 – Lowell at Zeeland West
- Division 4 – Whitehall v. Grand Rapids South Christian at Byron Center High School
- Division 8 – Baldwin at Beal City
All games kick off at 7 p.m., with short-term archives available on FoxSportsDetroit.com and long-term archives and DVDs available through MHSAA.tv.
Also, catch highlights of the following games on Football Friday Overtime at midnight Friday and again at 7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday on Fox Sports Detroit:
- Flint Powers at Lansing Catholic
- Redford Thurston at New Boston Huron
- Detroit Country Day at Chelsea
- PLUS – Prep Zone Games
MHSAA Highlights: This week's package includes five highlights from MHSAA postseason events that took place from Nov. 1-8 including the Cross Country and Boys Soccer Finals and Volleyball and Football Districts.
PHOTO: St. Louis sets up at the net on the way to winning its Class C District last week. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Balancing Football Playoffs
April 18, 2017
Every time the Michigan High School Athletic Association Football Playoffs have been expanded, two voices have been heard – one complaining that too many teams or divisions have watered down the tournament; the other advocating that every school should qualify for the tournament regardless of its regular-season performance.
The playoffs have expanded from 32 to 64 to 128 to 256 to 272 teams; and for 2017, with the addition of 16 more 8-player teams, to 288 of the 626 MHSAA member schools’ football teams in Michigan.
We have reached the point where 46 percent of the schools which sponsor football qualify for the Football Playoffs, and we are approaching closely the point of qualifying every team with winning records during the regular season.
Those stats sound about right for a collision sport conducted mostly outdoors in a cold climate for teenagers. A longer tournament is unwise; a larger tournament is unneeded.
What is needed and wise is more attention to the regular season, and especially to practices which occur at least five times more frequently than games. That’s where the teaching and learning of football skills and life lessons can be everyday occurrences for every team in Michigan.