Montrose Again SBP Program of the Year

By John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director emeritus

April 15, 2015

Capturing first place in three of five individual categories, Montrose High School repeated as the “Program of the Year” in the second annual MHSAA School Broadcast Program Excellence Awards for 2014-15.

The SBP Excellence Awards are underwritten by Herff Jones, which will award certificates and plaques to the schools which took individual honors, with the presentation dates and times to be announced.

Montrose took first place in Best Play-By-Play, Best Single Camera Production with PlayOn! Sports graphics, and the top two spots for Best Use of PlayOn! Sports Graphics. The program also took a second place for Best Produced Commercial/Feature and a third for Best Multicamera Production. Montrose also demonstrated during the school year a good blend of productions in a variety of sports covered and an overall command of the PlayOn! Sports software used for graphics and inserting commercials/features during the course of productions.

Other category winners were: Cedar Springs High School for Best Multicamera Production and Rogers City High School for Best Produced Commercial/Features.

Here is the complete list by categories of the schools and students being honored in this year’s SBP Excellence Awards:
 

Best Multicamera Production

First Place – Cedar Springs – Sam Owen, Sydney Dryer, Bryan Taylor, Alec Lachniet, Kaci Clark – Football game vs. Grand Rapids Northview.

Second Place – Cedar Springs – Rider Swanson, Sam Owens, Darrick Liggett, Kaci Clark, Cody Hoogerheide, Krystyn Messersmith – Football game vs. Ada Forest Hills Eastern.

Third Place – Montrose – Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Amanda Ramsey, Nathan Brown, Eric Vandefifer, Brandon Smith – Genesee Area Conference Girls Competitive Cheer Finals.

 

Best Play-By-Play

 

First Place – Montrose – Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz  – Boys Basketball game vs. Lake Fenton.

Second Place – Rogers City – Casey Szatkowski – Girls Basketball game vs. Whittemore-Prescott.

Best Produced Commercial/Feature

 

First Place – Rogers City – Megan Brege, Heather Hentkowski, Ally Streich – Huron Halloween of Horror Feature.

 

Second Place – Montrose – Alyssa Bernard, Amanda Ramsey, Alicia Town, Allia Town – Sexual Assault PSA.
 

Third Place – Rogers City – Megan Brege, Heather Hentkowski, Ally Streich – Rogers City Girls Basketball Season Preview.

 

Best Single Camera Production with PlayOn! Graphics

 

First Place – Montrose - Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Eric Vandefifer – Girls Soccer match vs. Hemlock.

Second Place – Rogers City – Brendan Koss, Sarah Meredith – Football game vs. Rudyard.

Third Place – Rogers City – Chandler Beland, Josh Foster – Girls Volleyball match vs. Posen.

Best Use of PlayOn! Graphics/Software

First Place – Montrose – Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley, Griffin Powell, Bradley Payne – Boys Basketball game vs. Goodrich.

Second Place – Montrose – Eric Vandefifer, Trey Schmitz, Andrew Morley – Girls Basketball game vs. Lake Fenton.

Third Place – Rogers City - Victoria Bullock, Zachary Myers – Football game vs. Hillman.

The School Broadcast Program, powered by PlayOn! Sports, is a platform which schools can utilize to reach members of their community about activities taking place in their buildings, providing recognition for students while at the same time giving them hands-on opportunities to gain broadcasting experience and providing schools an opportunity to realize additional revenues for their programs.

Schools interested in becoming a part of the School Broadcast Program should contact John Johnson at the MHSAA Office.

Tournament Attendance Tops 1.4 Million

September 17, 2013

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

The 2012-13 school year marked the sixth straight that attendance at Michigan High School Athletic Association postseason tournaments totaled more than 1.43 million fans, with attendance at girls tournaments topping 430,000 for the fourth straight year.

Total attendance for 2012-13 was 1,433,356 fans, with 1,002,663 at boys tournaments and 430,693 spectators at girls tournaments. Attendance is kept for all sports except golf, skiing and tennis, for which admission typically is not charged.

Girls tournament attendance first topped 400,000 for a school year in 2008-09, then rose over 430,000 for the first time the following year. Helping fuel the total in 2012-13 was a record crowd of 25,290 for competitive cheer (District, Regional and Final rounds combined), and also a record attendance of 12,508 for the girls and boys bowling tournament.

Total attendance did dip slightly in 2012-13, down from 1,479,152 the year before, a drop of 3.1 percent and the lowest since 2006-07. However, four sports joined cheer and bowling with attendance increases from 2011-12 – girls basketball up 4.8 percent to 166,153 fans, gymnastics up 16.8 percent to 2,290, team wrestling up 1.2 percent to 28,863 and ice hockey up 6.5 percent with 59,037 fans this past season.

Football again was the most attended tournament for the sixth consecutive year with 397,944 fans in 2012 – although that represented a 7.3 percent drop from the 2011 playoffs. However, the Regional (5.6 percent) and Semifinal (6.3) rounds both saw increases in fans from the previous season.

Similarly, boys basketball again was second in attendance with 318,325 fans, despite a 1.4 percent decrease from 2011-12. However, the District, Regional and Quarterfinal rounds showed a combined increase of 2.4 percent over the previous season. Girls basketball attendance increased in every round from 2011-12 for an overall increase of 4.8 percent. The Finals weekend total, including semifinals and championship games for each class, was 19,003, the highest since 1992-93.

Girls lacrosse total attendance dropped 9.7 percent to 5,009 fans, but still totaled its second most as an MHSAA sport and set records for Semifinals (1,027) and Finals (1,171) attendance. Volleyball attendance (96,151) remained above 96,000 fans for the fourth consecutive year despite falling 3.2 percent from its 2011-12 record high. Girls soccer dropped less than half a percent from 2011-12 to 26,836 fans, but set a Regional round record with 10,574.