Today in the MHSAA: 5/25/16
May 25, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Top Michigan teams in girls soccer and softball matched up Tuesday as most prepare for the start of District play next week – and check out also a great story of sportsmanship from the Muskegon area.
Baseball
Richmond downed Armada 4-0 to clinch a 17th straight Blue Water Area Conference championship – Port Huron Times-Herald
Boys Golf
Essexville Garber won its fourth Bay County championship in five seasons, led this time by Graham MacBride’s 78 – Bay City Times
Boys Lacrosse
Midland came back to edge Bloomfield Hills 15-11 in a Regional matchup of strong Division 1 hopefuls – Midland Daily News
Girls Soccer
Division 2 top-ranked DeWitt downed Division 3 No. 2 Williamston for the Capital Area Activities Conference Gold Cup championship – Lansing State Journal
Softball
Division 4 No. 2 Unionville-Sebewaing split with Division 2 top-ranked Saginaw Swan Valley 0-1 and 7-6, only days after beating Division 1 top-ranked Macomb Dakota in tournament play – Saginaw News
Petoskey’s Emme Williams tied her school's pitching record of 26 wins and broke the runs record with 53 in a sweep of Boyne City – Petoskey News
Track & Field
Lake Linden-Hubbell continued a dominant run by sweeping both girls and boys Copper Mountain Conference meet championships – Houghton Daily Mining Gazette
Clare swept league titles in the Jack Pine Conference, the girls winning for the third straight season and the boys for the 13th consecutive spring – Mount Pleasant Morning News
Good Read
We love these stories of sportsmanship: North Muskegon soccer keeper Gus Keur made a big save during a collision in what was then a scoreless game, but after noticed the Muskegon Reeths-Puffer opponent who took the shot still on the ground – so Keur picked up her opponent and carried her toward the sideline. Reeths-Puffer scored not long after and won 1-0, but as Keur’s mother told her, more will remember her kind act than the goal she let by – Muskegon Chronicle
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.