BY DAN STICKRADT
Communications Specialist | Web And Content Editor | Director of News |
Social Media Director | Interns and Freelance Coordinator
PH: (248) 884-1051
TW: @LocalSportsFans @MiSoccerNetwork
ALL OVER MICHIGAN – It’s soon to be a dawning of a new day or in this case a new season in the high school sports arena of Michigan.
With the winter sports campaign winding down with the final weeks of the boys basketball and girls basketball postseason tournaments, spring sports will begin in earnest next week. Girls soccer is one of nine spring sports that can begin Monday afternoon across the state at Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools.
The MHSAA will also see baseball, softball, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse, boys golf, girls tennis, boys track and field and girls track and field begin on March 11. Some schools also offer boys volleyball or boys and girls water polo in the spring season, but those sports are not yet sanctioned by the MHSAA.
Other in-state schools from the Michigan Association of Christian Schools, Michigan Christian Schools Athletic Association and the Association of Christian Schools International will also start next week, while many of the state’s home-schooled programs that compete in the Michigan Home School Sports Association already have begun tryouts and practices.
Girls soccer teams can begin to play games (weather and field conditions withstanding) on March 20. There are currently 750 members schools of the MHSAA and over 400 member schools that sponsor girls soccer – 108 in Division 1, 112 in Division 2, 110 in Division 3 and 114 in Division 4 – which would bring the MHSAA up to one of its all-time highs for girls soccer programs. The MHSAA is expected to field 444 girls soccer teams this spring. There are also more than 30 girls soccer teams coming from non-MHSAA members.
All 33 postseason tournaments sanctioned by the MHSAA are conducted with schools assigned to equal or nearly equal divisions, with lines dependent on how many schools participate in those respective sports.
The 2024 MHSAA girls soccer finals will take place June 14-15 at the DeMartin Soccer Complex on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Two girls soccer finals will be played on Friday (June 14) and two more state finals will take place on Saturday (June 15). Girls soccer will again join baseball and softball as part of the final weekend of the 2023-24 high school sports year concluding at side-by-side facilities at MSU.
Rochester Stoney Creek (Division 1), Grosse Pointe North (Division 2), Hudsonville Unity Christian (Division 3) and Kalamazoo Christian (Division 4) are the defending MHSAA state champions in girls soccer.
For the first time since the 2006-07 school year, Upper Peninsula schools that are MHSAA members will be allowed to participate downstate in the MHSAA postseason tournament in girls soccer. From the fall of 2007 through June of 2023, U.P. schools were forced into its own U.P. Postseason tournament (boys soccer with two divisions and girls soccer with one division) due to a 2007 court ruling regarding to specific sports and the season they were ruled to compete in at that time. The court-order regarding boys soccer and girls soccer was reversed in August of 2023.
There are currently five Upper Peninsula schools that currently sponsor girls soccer – Marquette and Sault Ste Marie-Rudyard Unified in Division 2 and Houghton, Kingsford and Iron Mountain-Norway Unified in Division 3. Last fall in boys soccer, seven of the 14 programs from the Upper Peninsula that sponsor boys soccer (several of the small school programs are co-ed) entered the MHSAA postseason with both Marquette (Division 2) and Kingsford (Division 3) winning district championships and advancing to the Round of 16.
The MHSAA first began sponsoring postseason tournaments for girls soccer in the spring of 1983.
Classifications for Michigan High School Athletic Association elections and postseason tournaments for the 2024-25 school year will be announced in April with the breakdown of divisions in each sport forthcoming later this spring and summer. MHSAA Executive Director Mark Uyl said schools may not subsequently lower their enrollment figure. However, if revised enrollment figures are higher and indicate that a school should be playing in a higher division, that school would be moved up.
STATE-WIDE MEDIA DAY
For the first time ever, the Premier Media Group/Michigan Soccer Network will host a live show on March 15 – Statewide Media Day for Girls Soccer live on its YouTube channel beginning at 6 p.m. and lasting until 9 pm.
Varsity girls soccer coaches across the state will receive invites to either come into the Shelby Township studios or schedule a live zoom interview that evening where coaches will be encouraged to talk about the upcoming prep girls soccer season in general, their respective teams, schools in their conference, top players, top Miss Soccer candidates and top overall teams overall and in top teams in each division across the Great Lakes State.
The microphone and the podium are yours.
“We’ve hosted some media days for leagues in the Detroit area, but this will be the first state-wide platform where coaches can come into the studio or come onto zoom and talk about soccer. We’re creating the platform for this to happen. It should be a fun night.”
Email Director of Broadcasting Jonathan Turner at jonathan@michigansoccernetwork.com to set up a time frame for the head coach or captains to either come into the Shelby Township studios or to set up a zoom live stream link if you are outside the area.
PRESEASON SURVEYS VIA EMAIL
All 450-plus girls soccer-sponsoring schools should receive emails on March 15-19 sent to the head coach directly, or in some cases the athletics director or athletics secretaries if we don’t have a particular coaches email available.
Communications Specialist / Web and Content Editor / Director of News Dan Stickradt and staff at MSN will dig deep into the lists of pour Super 50 teams, top field players, top goalkeepers, conference breakdown and team capsules for over 60 leagues across the state plus independents, breakdown of the top teams by division, saluting the champions, historical charts and much more.
If you don’t receive an email, please reach out to Dan Stickradt at stickradt@michigansoccernetwork.com
TIP-LINE
The new Michigan Soccer Network Tip-Line is now available at (248) 617-7715. If you have questions, or wish to suggest a story idea or broadcast idea or have some breaking news to share, call the above-listed number or you can email our Director of News Dan Stickradt at stickradt@michigansoccernetwork.com
SCHEDULE YOUR TEAM FOR A LIVE BROADCAST
Want to entertain the idea of having your high school varsity, club soccer, small college or amateur/semi-pro games broadcasted during 2024, reach out to Director of Broadcasting Jonathan Turner at jonathan@michigansoccernetwork.com for pricing, availability and questions regarding having our team.
The MSN crew will broadcast games in various parts of Michigan outside of the Detroit area, already streaming live from Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Flint, Midland and even Mackinac Island.
(Have a story suggestion for the Premier Media Group and the Michigan Soccer Network regarding club soccer, high school varsity, amateur soccer, collegiate soccer or professional soccer of teams or players with Michigan ties, contact Communications Specialist/Web and Content Editor/Director of News Dan Stickradt via email at stickradt@michigansoccernetwork.com, or call 248-884-1051. Dan Stickradt is a 31-year veteran of the Michigan Media circles and recently joined the staff full time in March of 2024. Want to schedule a broadcast game or live show, contact PMG/MSN Director of Broadcasting Jonathan Turner for availability and pricing at jonathan@michigansoccernetwork.com.)
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