Today in the MHSAA: 11/2/15
November 2, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Cross Country and Boys Soccer Regionals finished up over the weekend and the final volleyball league tournaments were played in advance of this week’s MHSAA Districts. Click for a few of each that stuck out among the weekend’s media reports.
Cross Country
Fenton’s unranked boys won their first MHSAA Regional since 2006 and third in school history, outpacing No. 6-ranked Bay City Western in Lower Peninsula Division 1 – Flint Journal
The Alma girls will race at the MHSAA Finals for the first time since 1990 after finishing second at the LPD2 Regional in Bay City – Mount Pleasant Morning Sun
Boys Soccer
Division 3 No. 10 Gladwin continued its best season ever, winning its first MHSAA Regional title by downing No. 11 Ludington – Midland Daily News
Division 4 No. 3 Muskegon Western Michigan Christian got past No. 5 Leland 1-0 to claim a Regional title – Traverse City Record-Eagle
Girls Swimming and Diving
Brighton, No. 6 in LPD1, overtook Hartland in the final event to win the Kensington Lakes Activities Association West meet championship – Livingston Daily
Volleyball
The Concord volleyball team entered the Big 8 Conference tournament as the fourth seed, but with a victory earned a share of its fifth straight league title – Jackson Citizen-Patriot
Class B No. 8 North Branch avenged an earlier loss to honorable mention Frankenmuth to win the all-division Tri-Valley Conference tournament championship, its 11th straight – Saginaw News
Linked Up: 10/28/11
December 13, 2011
Each week I'll post links to stories that interest me most during my travels in online sports land. I was going to wait for next week for this first installment, but these seemed worthy of telling you about now.
See something high school sports-related that you think others would find valuable? Send me a link.
These two teams provide multiple reasons why 8-player football has been such a strong addition -- most notably, it is providing our smallest schools with an opportunity to still play football despite fewer players, and succeed. The sport took off in this state in 2009, and this weekend mark the start of the first MHSAA 8-player Tournament. Akron-Fairgrove will play its first postseason game since 1992, while Owendale-Gagetown will play its first since 1979.
Olivet's Peters coaching his heart out (Battle Creek Enquirer)
I covered Olivet and coach Dean Peters for more than a decade, including during last season's first-ever Eagles run to the MHSAA football finals. One of the great people in high school coaching, he needed emergency double-bypass surgery earlier this month but is back in the coaching booth. Olivet faces Lansing Catholic in a Pre-District game.
Megan Hubbard a standout for Hanover-Horton cross country (Jackson Citizen-Patriot)
This is a neat story about a runner who is second-best on her team and has never won a race -- but also is likely the second-best to ever run at her school. Usually, we hear only about who finishes first.
Standley Lake football player Rhett Gutierrez overcomes eye disease (The Denver Post)
Almost always, links I post will be Michigan-related. But this story is just incredible. We've seen athletes with different degrees of vision impairment do incredible things in high school athletics. But this is the first time I've heard of someone overcoming that obstacle to play quarterback for his football team.