Today in the MHSAA: 5/19/16
May 19, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
As tennis and track & field teams prepare to begin the postseason, there’s plenty of news to report from all over the state and a few features worth a little more of your time today as well.
Baseball
Howell claimed its first Kensington Lakes Activities Association overall title with a comeback win over Northville – Livingston Daily
Golf
Midland’s Top Kamnark shot a school-record 66 to lead his team to a second straight Saginaw Valley League overall championship – Midland Daily News
Softball
Canton rallied in the seventh inning to down Milford 5-4 and win the overall KLAA championship – Oakland Press
DeWitt handed Grand Ledge the Comets’ first loss this season to advance to the Lansing Softball Classic championship game with a 12-9 win – Lansing State Journal
New Haven won its first Macomb Area Conference championship since joining the league in 2005 with a 15-6 win over Clinton Township Clintondale – Macomb Daily
From Tuesday, Escanaba launched five homers over two games to sweep Gladstone by a combined 16-0 score – Escanaba Daily Press
Girls Tennis
Niles Brandywine won its fourth straight league title and ninth in 12 seasons by claiming the Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph Conference title – Niles Daily Star
Good Reads
The Adrian Daily Telegram did a quick Q & A with Blissfield baseball coach Larry Tuttle, one of two in MHSAA history with more than 1,200 wins – Adrian Daily Telegram
Saginaw Nouvel’s Mitch Morley is the son of former Nouvel star and Kansas City Royals minor leaguer Mike Morley, and also is talented on the diamond as well as the football field and basketball court – Saginaw News
Detroit Cass Tech’s Savalas Morgan has improved significantly to become an MHSAA contender in track, but that’s just one of his talents – Detroit 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.