FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - June 30, 2009
Contact: John Johnson or Andy Frushour
517.332.5046 or www.mhsaa.com

EAST LANSING, Mich.  – June 30 – A total of 122 team champions were crowned in Michigan High School Athletic Association post-season tournaments during the 2008-09 school year.

Of the 122 team champions in classes or divisions, there were four schools winning their first MHSAA titles in any sport:  Cheboygan in boys bowling; Linden in boys cross country; Harrison in boys skiing; and Hudson in wrestling.   In addition, there were 29 other teams which won tournament titles in a given sport for the first time.

Twenty two of the 87 schools winning in 2008-09 took more than one crown, with four schools –East Grand Rapids, Holland Christian, Marquette and Sterling Heights Stevenson -- each claiming at least two championships each in unified tournaments.  East Grand Rapids led the group with three such titles - winning in baseball, football  and boys lacrosse, while the other three schools each had two unified championships – Holland Christian in football and girls volleyball; Marquette in boys skiing and girls skiing; and Sterling Heights Stevenson in boys bowling and girls bowling.   Marquette won seven total titles; East Grand Rapids had five; Gladstone had four; Ann Arbor Pioneer, Crystal Falls Forest Park, Iron Mountain and Potterville each won three crowns. Sixteen of the MHSAA's 28 championship tournaments are unified, involving teams from the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, while separate competition to determine titlists in both Peninsulas is conducted in the other 12 sports.

Six schools ran seven consecutive championship streaks to four or more in a given sport, including:   Ann Arbor Pioneer in girls swimming and diving (9), Birmingham Brother Rice in boys lacrosse (5), Gladstone in boys track and field (6), Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern in girls tennis (4), Hudsonville Unity Christian in girls soccer (5), and Marquette in girls cross country (9) and girls swimming and diving (8).

Click here for a sport-by-sport listing (PDF) of MHSAA champions for 2008-09.

The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by over 1,600 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 approximately 1.6 million spectators each year.