Casting Lines for Future Tournaments
August 12, 2016
By Jack Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director
The MHSAA is best known to the public for the tournaments it conducts to conclude the fall, winter and spring seasons each school year.
These tournaments, the first and largest program of the MHSAA, have survived the Vietnam War, the Korean conflict and two World Wars. They have survived the technology bubble, the housing collapse, the energy crisis and the Great Depression.
MHSAA tournaments existed at the dawn of aviation and at the time of our nation’s lunar landing. Popes, presidents and governors have changed and changed again and again, and MHSAA tournaments roll on year after year.
But the sense of tradition and permanence and inevitability of MHSAA tournaments doesn’t dissuade us from asking questions about our tournaments, even some of the most basic questions. Here are two.
Question #1
I have long been and will always be an advocate for a Ryder Cup format for the MHSAA Golf Finals, and a team tennis approach to the MHSAA Tennis Finals; but 90 years of tradition is hard to overcome. Might this be a more exciting format? Could it be co-ed? Could it reverse the decline in boys tennis participation, and increase girls golf participation? Wouldn’t it be fun to try?
Periodically, the International Olympic Committee requires each of the designated Olympic sports to defend its status, to state its case why the sport should remain a part of the Olympic program. Then, after a series or votes that retain one sport at a time, the IOC drops the sport that makes the weakest case. It does so to make room for one of the previously unlisted sports that makes the best case for inclusion.
This would appear to keep the existing Olympic sports on their toes, and to keep the Olympic movement fresh and reflective of modern trends in sports.
While I would not enjoy the controversy, I can see the potential for some positive results if the MHSAA were to invoke the same policy for determining the 14 tournaments it will provide for girls and the 14 for boys.
This might cause us to consider more deeply what a high school sport should look like, or at least what an MHSAA tournament sport should stand for.
On the one hand, we might be inclined to drop tournaments for those sports that involve mostly non-faculty coaches and non-school venues, or require cooperative programs to generate enough participants to support a team, or resort almost entirely to non-school funding, or cater to individuals more than teams.
Or perhaps this process would cause policymakers to forget traditional thinking and ask: “In this day and age, should we shake off traditional notions of sport and consider more where modern kids are coming from?” That might mean fewer team sports and more individual sports, more “extreme” sports like snowboarding and skateboarding, and more lifetime sports, meaning not just golf and tennis and running sports, but also fishing and even shooting sports.
Currently, MHSAA policy states that the MHSAA will consider sponsorship of a tournament series for any sport which 64 member schools conduct on an interscholastic basis as a result of action by the governing boards of those schools.
Should the only question be how many schools sponsor a sport, or must an activity also have certain qualities and/or avoid certain “defects?” What should an MHSAA tournament sport look like and stand for?
Question #2
Bristling from criticism that his association is a money-grabbing exploiter of children, my counterpart in another state said, “If we were running our programs just to make money, we would do very many things very differently.” I knew exactly what he meant.
Because we care about the health and welfare of students, because we mean what we say that the athletic program needs to maximize the ways it enhances the school experience while minimizing academic conflicts, and because we try to model our claim that no sport is a minor sport when it comes to its potential to teach young people life lessons, we operate our programs in ways that make promoters, marketers and business entrepreneurs laugh, cry or cringe.
If money were the only object, we would seed and select sites to assure the teams that attracted the most spectators had the best chance to advance in our tournaments, regardless of the travel for any team or its fan base. If money were the only object, we would never schedule two tournaments to overlap and compete for public attention, much less tolerate three or four overlapping events. If money were the only object, we would allow signage like NASCAR events and promotions like minor league baseball games.
Those approaches to event sponsorship may not be all wrong; they’re just not all right for us. And we will live with the consequences of our belief system.
During a typical school year, more than 20 percent of the MHSAA’s 2,097 District, Regional and Final tournaments lose money. Not a single site in golf, skiing or tennis makes a single penny. In no sport did every District, Regional and Final site have revenue in excess of direct expenses.
In fact, in only three sports – boys and girls basketball and football – is revenue so much greater than direct expenses overall that it helps to pay for all the other tournaments in which the MHSAA invests.
That’s right: invests. When we present our budget to our board, we talk about the MHSAA’s investment in providing tournament opportunities in all those sports and all those places that cannot sustain the cost of those events on their own. How much is this investment worth to students, schools and society?
These two are core questions that require our focus far in advance of talk about scheduling, site selection, seeding and the myriad matters that too often hijack our time and attention.
St. Mary's Earns Another Saturday Return, Taking on History-Making Kenowa Hills
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
June 11, 2026
EAST LANSING – Death, taxes and Orchard Lake St. Mary's baseball team finding itself in another MHSAA Finals championship game.
The last of those three certainties was affirmed again Thursday when the torrid Eaglets blanked Dearborn Divine Child 8-0 in a Division 2 Semifinal at Michigan State.
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s used two productive innings to soar into Saturday's 9 a.m. title game against Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills. The spot in the Finals will be the program's 10th since 2007, with three titles won from 2019-2022 and six since 1998.
Despite the long track record of success, Eaglets coach Nick DiPonio said the winning never gets old or taken for granted. The program has averaged 33 victories per season since claiming the 2019 Division 2 title.
"This was definitely not just another game," said DiPonio, whose No. 1-ranked team upped its winning streak to 26 games. "We're battle-tested. We play in a great league with great players, and we're used to competition. We've become good at blocking out all the extraneous noise."
Orchard Lake St. Mary's sent 12 batters to the plate to score five runs in the third inning and added three more runs in the fifth. The third inning barrage included three triples, including one by Hudson Brzustewicz with the bases loaded. Luke Crighton drove in a run with another triple.
The trio of runs in the fifth included an RBI single by Zach Essig, one of three current Eaglets who had older brothers play on previous state champions. Essig said his current teammates are well-aware of the program's previous success.
"It's crazy," said Essig, who has two older brothers on former champs. "I'm the only one without a ring; we haven't won anything yet. Those guys were role models for us. Our older brothers pushed us. We've got a lot of good guys on this team, and we're capable of beating anyone when we play well."
Crighton, who scattered four hits and faced only three batters over the minimum, thought he did a quality job of wading through a Divine Child lineup which scored 30 runs over the Regionals and Quarterfinal.
"I threw strikes and felt strong, and overall I thought I did okay," he said. "I was able to trust the defense to make the plays.
DiPonio said Crighton is a big-game pitcher.
"I expected him to go out and do this, the last two years, really," DiPonio said. "He always gives us a good chance to win. He throws strikes with multiple pitches."
Brzustewicz said there is no doubt one of the team's foremost goals is to carry on the long history of success in June. That success is felt by virtually all the players, he said.
"There is a brotherhood; we're going out there for our brothers,” he added. “We like to have fun and win, and we're right there this year. We've won like 26 in a row, but I don't know if we're at the same level yet as some of those teams. A couple won 40-some games."
Dearborn Divine Child coach Jeremy Shay, who has seen plenty of talented Eaglets teams in his four years, says the current club is a good one because it covers all parts of the game.
"They're very good," he said. "They obviously can hit and have very good pitching and play well defensively. They're tough to beat.”
Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills 9, Vicksburg 6
While Kenowa Hills may be known for an outstanding pitching staff, it was a pair of clutch seventh-inning hits that propelled the Knights into their first MHSAA Baseball Final.
Trailing 6-5 entering their final at-bats and having blown a 5-0 lead earlier, the Knights got a two-run triple from senior outfielder Andrew Lake and run-scoring single by Jack Stoddard to up their winning streak to 20 games.
"I was looking fastball and I choked up on the bat, and (the pitcher) hung a curve and I turned on it," Lake said. "You dream for this moment."
The clutch hits aside, Kenowa Hills (36-2) entered the game with a remarkable pitching staff which included three pitchers who had combined for a 26-1 record and ERA of under two runs a game. Kenowa Hills pitchers have 13 shutouts this season and 28 games where they have held teams to three runs or fewer.
"That's been our team all year – we battle," Stoddard said. "We come together as a team and have stayed motivated."
Kenowa Hills led 5-0 in the third inning with Hudson Drake driving in one run on a sacrifice fly and Brennan Gustinis adding an RBI triple.
But Vicksburg (30-8) cut the margin to 5-2 in the bottom of the third and then took a 6-5 lead into the seventh. Bulldogs junior outfielder Maguire Bowles drove in three runs with a single, bases loaded walk and triple. Graham Kubiak also drove in a pair of runs.
Despite the eye-popping numbers posted by the pitchers, first-year Kenowa Hills coach Todd VandenHeuvel said his club can hit and score clutch runs. The team entered Thursday with a .380 team batting average and come-from-behind wins over Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central and East Grand Rapids that proved to players that despite being unranked to start the season, they could be a power.
"Can we be really good or great?" he asked players earlier this season. "I think we've moved the needle toward being great. We've played from behind late before. It was an unusual situation, but I think it allowed us to play an aggressive game. That doesn't surprise me; that's what great teams do.
"I think we have a perfect balance of both (hitting and pitching). We like getting a run every inning; we don't do a lot of three or four-run innings."
Vicksburg coach Brian Deal, who is retiring after 28 years and 487 wins, said a team from a small town like Vicksburg making a Semifinal is a major feat.
"It's great for all the small towns," he said. "We did this for all those small towns. We think we can go toe-to-toe with any team. We had our chances to put more runs on the board."
PHOTOS (Top) An Orchard Lake St. Mary’s runner crosses the plate during the Eaglets’ Division 2 Semifinal win Thursday at McLane Stadium. (Middle) Kenowa Hills’ Bobby Haisma (19) applies a tag on Vicksburg’s Maddox Rosalin a few steps in front of first base.