MHSAA Spring Tournaments Soon to Begin as Calendar Turns to May
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
May 3, 2023
The wintery weather inevitably will loosen its grip across Michigan, and perhaps just in time with the first Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason events for this Spring 2023 season only a few weeks away and seeding for three of those tournaments soon to be announced.
Slightly more than 100,000 Michigan high school student-athletes participated in 2022 in spring sports for which the MHSAA sponsors postseason competition – baseball, girls and boys lacrosse, girls soccer, softball, girls and boys track & field, boys golf (Lower and Upper Peninsula) and girls golf (UP), and girls (LP) and boys (UP) tennis.
This spring’s tournaments will incorporate a few changes, with the most notable in girls lacrosse as the top two teams in every Girls Lacrosse Regional will be seeded and placed on opposite sides of the bracket for the first time. Seeds will be determined by using the MHSAA’s Michigan Power Ratings (MPR) formula, which takes into account success and strength of schedule and also is used currently to provide seeding information in boys lacrosse, girls and boys basketball, girls and boys soccer, and ice hockey. Only the top two teams in girls lacrosse will be seeded and separated; the other teams in each Regional will be placed on their brackets by random draw. Seeds and full brackets will be posted Sunday, May 7, on the girls lacrosse page of the MHSAA Website.
Golf, tennis and girls soccer also have changes that will be noticeable over these next seven weeks.
In golf, the maximum number of strokes allowed per hole during MHSAA Tournament play has been reduced from 12 to 10. Also, teams will be allowed two school-approved coaches to be present and actively coaching during postseason rounds.
In tennis, the number of players who may be seeded at No. 1 singles has been increased to seven if there are between 21-23 players in the field, and eight if the field includes 24 or more players at that flight. The No. 1 singles flight is the only flight that allows for individual qualifiers from Regional play, often making it larger than the other seven flights at the Finals.
In girls soccer, the two seeded teams at the District level will host their games if those games are not scheduled to be played at a prearranged host site. For these Districts, the No. 1 seed gets hosting priority, followed by the No. 2 seed, followed by the team on the top line of the bracket. Girls Soccer District brackets, with seeds, will be posted May 14 on the MHSAA Website.
Boys Lacrosse Regional brackets, which also are seeded, will be posted May 10 to the MHSAA Website.
The 2022-23 Spring campaign culminates with postseason tournaments, as the championship schedule begins with the Upper Peninsula Girls & Boys Golf and Boys Tennis Finals on May 31 and June 1 and wraps up with Girls Soccer, Baseball and Softball Finals on June 17. Here is a complete list of winter tournament dates:
Baseball
Districts – May 25-June 3
Regional Semifinals – June 7
Regional Finals, Quarterfinals – June 10
Semifinals – June 15-16
Finals – June 17
Golf
LP Boys Regionals – May 29-June 3
UP Girls & Boys Finals – May 31 or June 1
LP Boys Finals – June 9-10
Boys Lacrosse
Pre-Regionals – May 12-17
Regionals – May 18-31
Quarterfinals – June 2-3
Semifinals – June 7
Finals – June 10
Girls Lacrosse
Pre-Regionals – May 18-22
Regionals – May 24-June 3
Semifinals – June 7
Finals – June 10
Girls Soccer
Districts – May 24-June 3
Regionals – June 6-10
Semifinals – June 13-14
Finals – June 16-17
Softball
Districts – May 24-June 3
Regionals – June 10
Quarterfinals – June 13
Semifinals – June 15-16
Finals – June 17
Tennis
LP Girls Regionals – May 17-20
UP Boys Finals – May 31 or June 1
LP Girls Finals – June 2-3
Track & Field
Regionals – May 18-20
Finals – June 3
Baseball's Record-Setting Spectatorship Headlines MHSAA's 2024-25 Attendance Report
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 12, 2025
An overall attendance record in baseball and several more all-time bests for specific rounds of other sports’ postseason tournaments kept attendance at Michigan High School Athletic Association events near 1.4 million spectators for the third-straight school year in 2024-25.
Total, MHSAA Tournament events drew 1,397,574 spectators at competitions for which admission is charged – which counts all MHSAA-sponsored sports except golf, skiing and tennis, as single tickets are not sold for those postseason events. The total of just under 1.4 million spectators is a decrease of 3.6 percent from 2023-24, but still the third-highest overall attendance over the last eight school years.
Attendance at girls events for 2024-25 was 453,320 fans, a 3.9-percent decrease from the 2023-24 record-setting total but the second-highest over the last eight years.
The boys attendance of 944,254 was 3.4 percent fewer than the previous year. However, baseball set an overall tournament record with 65,150 spectators, with records as well of 38,086 at the District level and 7,517 attending Quarterfinals. Every round of the baseball postseason saw an increase from the previous year.
Overall attendance totals for the ice hockey, team wrestling, gymnastics, boys soccer and girls swimming & diving postseason tournaments also were up from 2023-24. Ice hockey set records at its Semifinals (7,758 spectators) and Finals (7,857), boys soccer at the District level (18,219) and team wrestling also at its Finals (11,604).
Football remains the most-attended MHSAA Tournament sport and drew 361,139 spectators for its playoff series – a decrease of just above a half-percent from the previous year but with the highest Finals turnout (44,535) since 2019-20. Boys basketball attendance remained second across all seasons at 251,668 spectators, followed by girls basketball at 145,313 and girls volleyball at 110,927.
Track & field (41,418 spectators) and softball (47,763) posted their second-highest attendances on record after setting records during the 2023-24 school year.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.