Beginning Another Tourney Journey
August 8, 2016
Below is the introductory commentary to the MHSAA's spring issue of benchmarks. Histories of MHSAA tournaments published in that issue have been appearing on Second Half every Tuesday and Friday.
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
Concussions and cutbacks. Participation fees and part-time employment. Student safety and specialization. International students and interstate travel. Transfers and trials.
Through a myriad of issues which periodically cloud our mission, the foundation on which the MHSAA was built still shines brightest three times each year: Tournament Time!
It can be daunting and overwhelming to make a living at this business of interscholastic athletics these days, not to mention a tad confusing. Do we need legal degrees? Medical degrees? Business degrees? Marketing degrees? There seems to be no escape from threat of legislative mandates which continually change the landscape of our product and how it’s delivered. Demands pile up, resources dwindle.
Add the daily challenges of scheduling issues, inclement weather and pleasing teenagers and their parents on a daily basis, and it’s easy to lose focus of the primary missions for the MHSAA and its member schools.
And then, scenes like this happen:
• Holly Bullough, a senior cross country runner from Traverse City St. Francis takes her second straight Division 3 championship, winning by 36.4 seconds ... with a stress fracture in her left foot.
• Detroit Martin Luther King QB Armani Posey directs a game-winning drive to give his school the Division 2 football championship ... a drive which started on his own 3-yard line with 37 seconds left and ended with a 40-yard heave to receiver Donnie Corley on the final play of the game.
• Leland sweeps the Class D volleyball title match 3-0 over Battle Creek St. Philip ... ending a string of nine straight titles for St. Phil, the 10th longest national streak in history.
• Davison’s Taylor Davis becomes only the fourth person in MHSAA Girls Bowling history to roll a 300 game in the Singles portion of the tournament ... and the first ever in the championship match.
• The Upper Peninsula’s Hancock HS wins the Division 3 ice hockey title in its first trip to the Final since 2000 ... a trip funded in part from a “Go Fund Me” web page that raised $6,620 from 99 donors in two days.
• Junior Kierra Fletcher of Warren Cousino carries her team to the Class A girls basketball championship with 27 points in the Final ... after scoring 37 of her team’s 60 points in the Semifinals and totaling 198 during eight tournament games.
That’s just a sampling of the magic from last fall and winter.
These moments shine through the current challenges and the unseen future that awaits us as they always have. The uniforms and faces are different, but the tournaments have always yielded the fruits of our labors, and the memories for our mental scrapbooks.
PHOTO: Leland's volleyball team hoists its Class D championship trophy last fall at Kellogg Arena.
Football Playoff Regional Seeding Highlights Changes as MHSAA Fall Sports Begin
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 7, 2026
A new format for early-round playoff seeding in 11-player football is among the most notable changes as more than 100,000 high school athletes from Michigan High School Athletic Association member high schools prepare for the first day of practices Monday, Aug. 10.
All fall sports teams may begin practicing Monday. Girls golf and boys tennis teams in the Lower Peninsula and girls tennis teams in the Upper Peninsula may begin competition Aug. 14. Cross country, field hockey, boys soccer, girls volleyball and Lower Peninsula girls swimming & diving teams may begin competing Aug. 19, and the first varsity football games may be played Aug. 27.
The 11-Player Football Playoffs will begin Oct. 30 and 31 with a new seeding system. Beginning this season, the playoff field in each of eight 11-player divisions will first be organized into eight-team Regionals. The eight teams in each Regional will then be seeded based on playoff-point average, with seeds 1, 4, 5 and 8 comprising one District and seeds 2, 3, 6 and 7 comprising the other. The winners of those Districts will play in the Regional Final.
A golf change also relates to postseason play, as golfers must now play in at least eight dates of a school team’s competition schedule to be eligible for the MHSAA Tournament. If a school’s varsity team plays fewer than 16 regular-season dates of competition, a student must instead participate in at least 50 percent of the varsity’s regular-season dates to be eligible for the postseason.
Field hockey will begin its second season of MHSAA sponsorship with the addition of a 10-minute reduced-player overtime for all regular-season varsity games. Unless part of a regular-season bracketed tournament, a game still tied at the end of the 10-minute overtime will be declared a tie.
A few game-action rules changes also will be quickly noticeable to participants and spectators.
- High school volleyball teams now are permitted to designate up to two liberos prior to each set, although only one libero can be in the game at a time.
- Also in volleyball, players on the serving team are forbidden to raise their hands above their heads during service until the ball has passed beyond the net.
- In football, a rule formerly applied to defensive players prohibiting them from using their hands to slap an opponent’s head has been expanded to penalize players on both sides of the ball for slapping an opponent’s head.
- In soccer, goalkeepers will be allowed eight seconds instead of the previously-permitted six before releasing the ball. A corner kick will be awarded if the goalkeeper holds the ball past eight seconds.
- Also in soccer, a change on penalty kicks states encroachment will be penalized only if the offense has a clear impact on the penalty kick.
The 2026 Fall campaign culminates with postseason tournaments beginning with the Upper Peninsula Girls Tennis Finals during the week of Sept. 28 and wrapping up with the 11-Player Football Finals on Nov. 27 and 28. Here is a complete list of fall tournament dates:
Cross Country
U.P. Finals – Oct. 24
L.P. Regionals – Oct. 30-31
L.P. Finals – Nov. 7
Field Hockey
Regionals – Oct. 14-26
Semifinals – Oct. 28
Final – Oct. 31
11-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 25
District Semifinals – Oct. 30-31
District Finals – Nov. 6-7
Regional Finals – Nov. 13-14
Semifinals – Nov. 21
Finals – Nov. 27-28
8-Player Football
Selection Sunday – Oct. 25
Regional Semifinals – Oct. 30-31
Regional Finals – Nov. 6-7
Semifinals – Nov. 14
Finals – Nov. 21
L.P. Girls Golf
Regionals – Oct. 5-10
Finals – Oct. 16-17
Boys Soccer
Districts – Oct. 14-24
Regionals – Oct. 27-31
Semifinals – Nov. 4
Finals – Nov. 7
L.P. Girls Swimming & Diving
Diving Regionals – Nov. 12
Swimming/Diving Finals – Nov. 20-21
Tennis
U.P. Girls Finals – Sept. 30-Oct. 3
L.P. Boys Regionals – Oct. 7-10
L.P. Boys Finals – Oct. 14-15 (Division 1), Oct. 16-17 (Division 3), Oct 21-22 (Division 4), and Oct. 23-24 (Division 2)
Girls Volleyball
Districts – Nov. 2-7
Regionals – Nov. 10 & 12
Quarterfinals – Nov. 17
Semifinals – Nov. 19-20
Finals – Nov. 21
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.