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.
MHSAA 2026-27 School Year Classifications Announced
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
April 7, 2026
Classifications for Michigan High School Athletic Association elections and postseason tournaments for the 2026-27 school year have been announced, with enrollment breaks for postseason tournaments posted to each sport’s page on the MHSAA Website.
Classifications for the upcoming school year are based on a second semester count date, which for MHSAA purposes was Feb. 11. The enrollment figure submitted for athletic classification purposes may be different from the count submitted for school aid purposes, as it does not include students ineligible for athletic competition because they reached their 19th birthday prior to Sept. 1 of the current school year and will not include alternative education students if none are allowed athletic eligibility by the local school district.
All sports’ tournaments are conducted with schools assigned to equal or nearly equal divisions, with lines dependent on how many schools participate in those respective sports.
For 2026-27, there are 755 tournament-qualified member schools. Schools recently were notified of their classification, and sport-by-sport divisions were posted to the MHSAA Website today (April 7). MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said a school may not subsequently lower its enrollment figure. However, if a revised enrollment figure is higher and indicates that a school should be playing in a higher division, that school would be moved up.
Five MHSAA Finals champions from fall and winter this school year will change divisions for 2026-27, including a few which have dominated over the first half of this decade.
Whitmore Lake’s girls cross country team will compete in Lower Peninsula Division 3 this upcoming fall coming off three straight Division 4 titles, and Farmington Hills Mercy’s girls swimming & diving team will be moving to Division 3 after winning the last three Division 2 championships. Allen Park’s competitive cheer team, which has won the last three Division 2 championships, will compete in Division 1 next winter. Reigning LPD4 girls golf champion Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian will move into Division 3 this fall, and Division 3 girls volleyball champion Kingsley will be moving into Division 2.
Among spring sports teams currently competing, Pickford’s boys track & field team won the last three Upper Peninsula Division 2 titles and will move to Division 3 for 2027 after competing in Division 2 again this spring, while Newberry – winners of the last two UP Division 3 titles – will move into Division 2 in 2027 after competing in Division 3 this season. The Pickford and Newberry girls teams, both coming off Finals championships last spring as well, will make the same switches for 2027. Powers North Central boys golf, which won the last two UP Division 3 titles, will compete in Division 3 again this spring but move to Division 2 next year.
Schools also may request to play in a higher classification or division in a sport for a minimum of two years. Requests to opt up in fall sports for 2026-27 must be submitted by May 1, winter sports by Aug. 15 and spring sports by Oct. 15
Visit the respective sport pages at MHSAA.com to review the divisional alignments for all MHSAA-sponsored tournament sports. Click the “SPORTS” menu above to access the page for each sport, then the “Assignments” link on the selected sport page and then “DIVISION LIST” to see the 2026-27 division.
Traditional classes (A, B, C, D) – formerly used to establish tournament classifications – are used only for MHSAA elections. To determine traditional classifications, after all counts are submitted, tournament-qualified member schools are ranked according to enrollment and then split as closely into quarters as possible. For 2026-27, there are 188 member schools in Class A and 189 each in Class B, Class C and Class D.
Effective with the 2026-27 school year, schools with 783 or more students are in Class A. The enrollment limits for Class B are 358-782, Class C is 167-357, and schools with enrollments of 166 and fewer are Class D. The break between Classes A and B decreased five students from 2025-26, the break between Classes B and C decreased 12 students, and the break between Classes C and D decreased four students from the 2025-26 school year.
The new classification breaks will see 20 schools move up in Class for 2026-27 while 18 schools will move down:
Moving Up from Class B to Class A
Battle Creek Harper Creek
Chelsea
Harper Woods
Linden
Parma Western
Pontiac
Wayland
Moving Down from Class A to Class B
Adrian
Bay City John Glenn
Fruitport
Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills
Marysville
Owosso
Stevensville Lakeshore
Moving Up from Class C to Class B
Detroit Communication Media Arts
Detroit The School at Marygrove
Ecorse
Fennville
Lake City
Ovid-Elsie
Moving Down from Class B to Class C
Flint Hamady
Manistee
Napoleon
Taylor Prep
Waterford Oakside Prep
Moving Up from Class D to Class C
Brimley
Coldwater Pansophia Academy
Ishpeming
Jackson Prep
Newberry
Petersburg Summerfield
Vestaburg
Moving Down from Class C to Class D
Fulton
Kalamazoo Phoenix
Mayville
Taylor Trillium Academy
Traverse City Greenspire
Vandercook Lake
New Postseason-Eligible Tournament Schools in 2026-27
Calumet Copper Island
Interlochen New Covenant Christian
West Branch Alternative Education Academy
Jackson da Vinci
Enrollment Breaks by Classes – 2026-27
(Number of schools in parentheses)
Class A: 783 and above (188 schools)
Class B: 358 – 782 (189)
Class C: 167 – 357 (189)
Class D: 166 and below (189)
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.