Did you see that?
June 4, 2012
Saturday annually is the busiest high school sports day on the MHSAA calendar.
The Spring Finals match began with Girls and Boys Track and Field and Girls Tennis Finals at sites all over both peninsulas. There were Regionals for both boys and girls lacrosse, which finish up this weekend. And, of course, there were Districts galore for softball, baseball and girls soccer.
Here's our sampling of some of the highlights:
Girls Track and Field
19 records fall: It was quite day across the seven MHSAA Girls Track and Field Finals, with 19 records broken, and two athletes – Reed City’s Sami Michell and Norway’s Dani Gagne – winning four individual events apiece. (Second Half)
Coast to coast: The Grosse Pointe South 3,200 relay was responsible for one of two all-Finals records, and ran a time of 8:48.29 that also surpassed the national record for that event (but may or may not stand as the national record, depending on what other times were run and will be submitted after this spring.) (Detroit Free Press)
Boys Track and Field
LP filled with first-time champs: Lake Orion in Division 1, Auburn Hills Avondale in Division 2 and Lansing Catholic in Division 3 won their first MHSAA team championships. Also, nine records fell across the state. (Second Half)
Quite a comeback: Marquette trailed Gladstone by 27 points at the Upper Peninsula Division 1 Final with four events to run. But the Redmen outscored Gladstone 42-0 over those events to win their third straight championship. (Marquette Mining Journal)
Girls Tennis
Southeast sweep: Detroit suburban schools claimed all four MHSAA Lower Peninsula team championships – Grosse Pointe South in Division 1, Birmingham Seaholm in Division 2, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood in Division 3 and Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart in Division 4. (Second Half)
Freshman reigns: Utica freshman Davina Nguyen beat both the first and second seeds on her way to claiming the individual championship at No. 1 singles in Division 1. Nguyen was seeded fifth. (Macomb Daily)
Boys lacrosse
Cranbrook comes out on top: Cranbrook-Kingswood, ranked No. 3 in Division 2, emerged from a Regional that also included No. 4 Haslett/Williamston and No. 5 East Grand Rapids, beating the latter 8-4 in the Final. (Bloomfield Patch)
Girls lacrosse
EGR plays to top ranking, again: Rivals East Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Catholic Central met in one of the multiple close Regional Finals, with the top-ranked Pioneers downing No. 2 GRCC one more time, 11-9. (Grand Rapids Press)
Baseball
It’s Holt, again: The Rams claimed their second championship in a week over rival Grand Ledge – both have been ranked in Division 1 this season. Two weeks ago, Holt split with the Comets to win the Capital Area Activities Conference Blue. Standout Justin Alleman gave up two hits and struck out 18 as Holt also won Saturday to claim a District title. (Lansing State Journal)
Softball
In the end, it’s Mattawan: The season-long battle for statewide Division 1 and Kalamazoo-area supremacy was decided in part at Saturday’s District at Portage Central. Reigning MHSAA champion Mattawan emerged as the winner from a field that included top-ranked Portage Central – which was upset by Kalamazoo Loy Norrix in a semifinal. (Kalamazoo Gazette)
Soccer
AAGR moves on: Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard, No. 8 in Division 3, shut out No. 7 Jackson Lumen Christi 3-0 in the Division 3 District final at Brooklyn Columbia Central (AnnArbor.com)
Leinaar to be Inducted into NIAAA Hall of Fame during National ADs Conference
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 15, 2023
Frankfort’s Karen Leinaar – one of the most active and influential administrators over the century-long history of the MHSAA – will receive deserved national recognition Tuesday with her induction into the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) Hall of Fame during the closing banquet of the 54th National Athletic Directors Conference in Orlando.
Leinaar is in her fifth school year as executive director of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (MIAAA) – the state’s professional organization for school sports administrators – and served as an athletic administrator at five schools over four decades through this spring. She also served 22 years on the MHSAA’s Representative Council and from 2009-13 on the Board of Directors for the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
She first served as athletic director at Delton Kellogg for nearly 17 years, from March 1982 through October 1998. She spent three years at Gaylord, then 8½ at Benzie Central before taking over at Bear Lake in November 2010 and spending the next decade organizing athletic programs for students in grades 5-12 before retiring in January 2021. She returned to serve as interim AD at Frankfort for the 2022-23 school year.
Leinaar has been honored several times for her contributions, most recently with the MHSAA’s Charles E. Forsythe Award for a lifetime of contributions to school sports. She also received the MHSAA’s Women In Sports Leadership Award in 1998, a Citation from the NFHS in 2000, was named MIAAA Athletic Director of the Year in 2001 and received an MHSAA’s Allen W. Bush Award in 2014.
A multiple-sport standout while attending Delton Kellogg High School, Leinaar graduated in 1977 and then earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education, health and recreation, with a minor in driver education, from Michigan State University in 1982. She completed a master’s in athletic administration from Western Michigan University in 1994.
The NADC banquet begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday and will be streamed live on the NFHS Network at no cost. Click to watch.
PHOTOS Frankfort’s Karen Leinaar accepts the 2023 Charles E. Forsythe Award from Grand Haven superintendent and MHSAA Representative Council president Scott Grimes during the Division 1 Boys Basketball Final in March.