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SBP Excellence Awards Announced

May 16, 2014

Montrose High School captured first place in two of five individual categories in the inaugural MHSAA School Broadcast Program Excellence Awards, and with it the “Program of the Year” honor.

The SBP Excellence Awards are underwritten by Herff Jones, which will award certificates and plaques to the ten schools which took individual honors.  Presentations will be scheduled in the coming weeks to the recipient schools.

Montrose took first place in two categories:  Best Multicamera Production for a basketball game against Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary; and Best Produced Commercial/Feature for a public service announcement about texting while driving.  The program also demonstrated during the 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 during the course of productions.

Other category winners were:  St. Ignace High School for Best Use of PlayOn! graphics in a football game against Hillman; Rogers City High School for the Best Overall Single Camera Production of a Game Using PlayOn! Graphics in a football game against Mio; and Haslett High School for Best Student Play-by-Play in a girls basketball game against DeWitt.

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

Best Single Camera Production with PlayOn! Graphics

First Place – Rogers City Sarah Meredith, Amber Nowicki – Football game v. Mio

Second Place – Petoskey – Stuart Green, Nick Snider, Josh Kuhlman, Joe LeBlanc – Girls Volleyball match with Ogemaw Heights

Third Place – St. Ignace – Alysse Bentley, Jenny Campbell, Dillian Denman – Football game v. Hillman

Best Multicamera Production

First Place – Montrose – Tyler J. Anderson, Eric Vandefifer, Cabresha Nard, Ashley Abair, Sidney Trantham – Boys Basketball game v. Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary

Second Place – Johannesburg-Lewiston – Girls Basketball game v. Gaylord St. Mary

Third Place – Cedar Springs – Ian Murphy, Alex Tanis, Alex Hughes, Kody Hall, Liz Moore, Alec Lachniet, Jake Detloff – Boys District Basketball game, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern v. Grand Rapids Northview

Best use of PlayOn! Graphics/Software

First Place – St. Ignace – Alysse Bentley, Jenny Campbell, Dillian Denman – Football game v. Hillman

Second Place – Haslett – Delany McFate – Girls basketball game v. DeWitt

hird Place – Petoskey - Stuart Green, Nick Snider, Josh Kuhlman, Joe LeBlanc – Girls Volleyball match with Ogemaw Heights

Best Produced Commercial/Feature

First Place – Montrose – Cabresha Nard, Tyler J. Anderson, Haley Ruiz – Texting/Driving PSA

Second Place – Charlevoix – Ben Boss,  Benny Patkai – Classroom electives offerings promo

Third Place – Rogers City – Morgan Hall, Sarah Meredith – Rogers City Softball Preview

Best Student Play-by-Play Commentary

First Place – Haslett – Andy Stamm, Tyler Mehigh – Girls basketball game v. DeWitt

Second Place – Rockford – Riley O’Keefe, Kevin DeLaFuente, Lucas Henry – Football game v. East Kentwood

Third Place – Escanaba – Jon Perrault, Todd Rose – Boys basketball game v. Gladstone      

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.

Michigan Again 7th for Participation

August 19, 2015

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

For the seventh straight year, Michigan ranked seventh nationally in high school sports participation, according to statistics for the 2014-15 school year released recently by the National Federation of State High School Associations. 

That level of participation continued to best Michigan’s national ranking for total number of residents of high school age, which remained ninth for the third consecutive year, and Michigan also ranked ninth or higher in participation in 25 of 28 sports in which the Michigan High School Athletic Association conducts a postseason tournament.

Michigan’s participation ranking was based on a number of 295,660, with 124,633 girls and 171,027 boys taking part, and included sports in which the MHSAA does not conduct postseason tournaments. The totals count students once for each sport in which he or she participates, meaning students who are multiple-sport athletes are counted more than once.

The state’s girls participation remained seventh nationally for the fourth consecutive year, while the boys participation figure continued to rank sixth. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures from 2014, Michigan ranks ninth in both females and males ages 14 through 17.

Two sports improved in national ranking this school year, while four sports dropped one or two positions. However, 13 sports bested the state’s overall national participation ranking of seventh, placing sixth or higher on their respective lists.

Michigan girls volleyball improved from fifth to fourth in the national participation ranking, and girls track and field from eighth to seventh. The four sports that ranked lower for 2014-15 were boys bowling falling from second to third, girls cross country from fifth to seventh, girls swimming and diving from ninth to 10th and wrestling from seventh to eighth.

The 11 other Michigan sports that ranked sixth or higher repeated their rankings from a year ago: football (11 and 8-player combined) at sixth, boys basketball at sixth, boys golf at sixth, boys ice hockey fourth, boys skiing fourth, boys tennis fifth, girls bowling fourth, girls competitive cheer fifth, girls golf sixth, girls skiing fourth and girls tennis also remaining fourth on its national participation list. 

The other Michigan sports that equaled their 2013-14 national ranking were girls basketball at seventh, gymnastics at 12th, girls lacrosse at 13th, girls soccer at ninth, softball at seventh, baseball at seventh, boys cross country also seventh, boys lacrosse eighth, boys soccer ninth, boys swimming and diving ninth and boys track and field seventh on its list.

National participation in high school sports in 2013-14 set a record for the 26th consecutive year with 7,807,047 participants – an increase of 11,389 from the year before. Girls participation also set a record for the 26th straight year, increasing this time 20,071 participants to 3,287,735 total. Boys participation fell 8,682 participants from 2013-14, but still totaled 4,519,312 after passing 4.5 million for the first time a year ago.

Boys soccer saw the largest gain nationally with an additional 15,150 participants, and that sport ranked fifth among boys sports behind 11-player football, outdoor track and field, basketball and baseball. Football (1,083,617) remained the most-played high school sport overall. Track and field remained the most popular girls sport with 478,726 participants, with volleyball moving ahead of basketball for the second spot in the girls rankings. Soccer and softball followed at fourth and fifth, respectively, on the girls sports list.