Today in the MHSAA: 2/22/17
February 22, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The basketball season continues to speed to a momentous conclusion, but today make sure to get to the bottom of this report for a couple of stories about athletes working through tragedy that you don’t want to miss.
Each weekday during the school year, we’ll gather and post media links covering the most significant and intriguing high school events from all over the state.
Boys Basketball
Big Rapids finished an outright Central State Activities Association Gold title with a 60-35 win over Reed City – Big Rapids News
New Haven advanced in the Macomb Area Conference Blue-Gold Tournament with a win over Warren Woods Tower and thanks to 40 points by Eric Williams, Jr. – Macomb Daily
Walled Lake Western edged rival Walled Lake Northern 63-62 to move on in the Kensington Lakes Activities Association Tournament – Oakland Press
Detroit U-D Jesuit just got past Orchard Lake St. Mary’s 51-49 to advance to the Detroit Catholic League A-B Final – Detroit News
Dollar Bay’s Devin Schmitz needed four points to reach 1,000 for his career, but scored 43 in a 66-57 win over Hancock – Houghton Daily Mining Gazette
Parma Western fell into a tie for first place in the Interstate 8 Athletic Conference after a 54-53 loss to Battle Creek Harper Creek – Battle Creek Enquirer
Blake Dunn became Saugatuck’s all-time leading scorer with 1,489 points, adding 19 in a win over Lawton – Grand Rapids Press
Girls Basketball
Brethren’s Taytum Myers became her school’s first 1,000-point scorer during a win over Lake Leelanau St. Mary – Manistee News Advocate
Frankenmuth clinched its 12th-straight Tri-Valley Conference East title with a 47-27 win over Essexville Garber – Saginaw News
Dearborn Heights Robichaud standout Kamaria McDaniel scored 39 points, but Flint Hamady emerged with a 75-67 win – Flint Journal
From Monday, Harbor Springs Harbor Light Christian got past Ellsworth 50-49 to secure its first Northern Lakes Conference title since 2007 – Petoskey News-Review
Good Reads
Similar tragedies have struck the Traverse City Bay Reps hockey program over the last three years, as multiple players have experienced the death of a parent. But the team has stuck together, on the rink and in working through those sadnesses – Traverse City Record-Eagle
Gaylord St. Mary’s golfer Noah Kole was hospitalized recently after losing feeling in his legs, and the Gaylord Herald Times wished him well this week (and the good news is he’s now recovering and should be ready for this spring) – Gaylord Herald Times
In Memoriam: Chip Mundy (1955-2023)
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 16, 2023
When the MHSAA took a significant step in telling the stories of school sports with the introduction of the Second Half website in 2012, Chip Mundy was a natural to lend his expertise after a career doing the same in the Jackson area.
He always took special care in searching out the human interest side of our “stories behind the scores” – and today we remember that dedication as we mourn his death Monday. He was 68.
Mundy was a graduate of Jackson Parkside and then served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86. He then became a fixture in high school sports coverage as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen Patriot from 1986-2011.
Mundy was one of the original correspondents when Second Half took on a regional component beginning with the 2015-16 school year, thoughtfully providing biweekly features from the “Southeast & Border” area that includes Jackson, Ann Arbor, Monroe and the host of smaller communities north of the Michigan/Ohio line. Before the beginning of 2H’s “Region Reports,” Mundy also was among the first to begin producing coverage of MHSAA Finals for the site as Second Half started in part with a mission of covering all MHSAA championship events.
He admittedly ended up reporting on some sports he’d rarely or never covered before, and admittedly often wrote a little longer than he’d intended – but in his own words, because “there were so many stories” or “the story was so good.”
Click to read many of his features for the Second Half website.