Football Regional Finals/8-Man Semifinals
The high school football season continues this weekend for the regional finals in 11 man football and the semifinals in 8-man football. The number of local teams still alive is down to 3. In 11-man. Division 4 has the 10-1 Niles Vikings taking on 11-0 Portland on Friday night at 7:00 at Viking Stadium in Niles. Niles comes into the game with their first conference championship since 2001, and the first district championship in program history with the win over Paw Paw in the regular season finale and the District Championship game a week ago. This is uncharted territory for the Vikings. A win would have the Vikings on to the Semifinals where they would either play Big Rapids or Grand Rapids South Christian.
The only other 11-Man area-“ish” school is White Pigeon, who are facing Ottawa Lake Whiteford in the Division 7 Regional Finals. Both teams are 11-0.
The Defending 8-Man Division 1 State Champion Martin Clippers are still defending that title. The Clippers take their 9-2 record on the road on Saturday at 9-2 Kingsford, the kickoff is at 1:00.
Time to Expand the 8-Man Playoffs
Off the field in 8-Man football is something that really needs to be addressed, especially at the MHSAA level. The most dominant football in 8-Man football over the past five seasons is the Bridgman Bees. Bridgman is 43-2 over that time, but the Bees do not have an official playoff win over that period, nor have they played an official playoff game. According to the MHSAA, Bridgman is too large of a school to be allowed in the 8-Man Playoffs.
So let’s look at this further. 8-Man football was created by the MHSAA back in 2011. It was created as a way for small schools to keep their football programs rather than just shutting down the programs altogether, leaving out the biggest part of small communities in the fall. Lawrence was one of those schools that took advantage of the new sport, winning a State Championship in 2014. The program allowed schools to save their programs, while helping small schools start or even restart football programs that were dormant for decades. Michigan Lutheran was one of those schools. Michigan Lutheran last fielded a team in 1984, before restarting it again in 2008 as an 11-man team. As the program went on, it was a numbers game, as fielding an 11 man team became too difficult for a small school of around 100 kids. Lake Michigan Catholic when it was named that also had a thriving 11-Man program for years until the numbers game caught up with them, and not only did the Lakers make the switch, they decided to join their rivals and combined with Countryside Academy to become the Twin City Sharks.
As more and more schools made the switch to 8-Man football, it left 11-man small schools with less opponents to fill the schedule. Leaving no games for them to play or games against larger schools that would dominate the game, leaving less players willing to come out for football, and those who did come out, injured, with nobody in reserve to fill the spot. Which led to games being forfeited and no reason to continue the season.
It’s simple, why come out for football, if you’re either going to play and lose, play and get hurt, or not being able to field a team. Not a great motivator for kids
Now back to Bridgman, the Bees have around 270 kids per year over the last five years. The point in high school sports is giving kids the opportunity to actually play. Bridgman fields four different boys fall sports teams. In addition to football, Bridgman has Cross Country, Tennis and Soccer, Soccer like football requires 11 players on the field. And you need about as many in reserve. Add JV teams, you would start to have problems filling a team if you had a full 11-man team. Which is why Bridgman switched to 8-Man Football.
But because the school’s enrollment is too high, Bridgman is not able to play in the playoffs. The MHSAA has been expanding the 8-Man Playoff field, since it’s start in 2011. But they’ve been slow to expand as more and more teams are making the switch. There are only 32 teams that are able to play in the 8-man playoffs, 16 in each Division. The 8-Man Playoffs are also a week shorter that their counterparts in the 11-man game. It’s time to expand the 8-man playoffs again, a larger school 8-man division could be added. And you could even expand the playoffs for another week, matching the 11-player division with 5 rounds instead of 4. The finals have found a perfect home at the Superior Dome in Maquette. If Ford Field can host 4 games a day over the two days of the finals, the “Yooper Dome” can handle three in one day.
Bridgman’s quarterback in 2022 Reid Haskins has his name all over the MHSAA record books for what he accomplished during his four years of high school. If his name can be in the record books, why can’t his team? They’re too big to play in the playoffs, but they affect the playoff field.
It should also be noted that the ban on Bridgman in the playoffs for being too large also applies, to Bangor, Bloomingdale, Fennville, the New Buffalo/River Valley co-op team Red Arrow Raiders, and the Our Lady of the Lake/Michigan Lutheran/Countryside co-op Twin Cities Sharks. Those players workout in the offseason, go through summer practice, practice every day, play to the whistle. They have every right to play to earn a state championship.
Because you made the switch to 8-man to save your programs, you should not have to trade that off for playing in the playoffs. Until the MHSAA allows these schools a chance to play in the playoffs. It might force these programs into dormancy again because there is nothing for them to play for after week 9.
The SMAC can count to 10 again in 2024
After four years the SMAC can finally count to 10 again… at least for football. It’s bean four years since the first proverbial shoe fell when after years of struggle, Kalamazoo Loy Norrix announced during the 2019 season, they would be leaving the conference for football until they could be able to compete with the rest of the league. It was roughly the same time that Niles made the announcement they would be leaving the conference altogether, and joining the BCS Conference. A year later, Niles did the same by leaving the BCS and joined the Wolverine Conference.
During the 2020 Covid Season, Gull Lake, facing another winless season made the same announcement as Loy Norrix that they too would be stepping away from the SMAC to play an independent schedule in the hopes of rebuilding their program.
The league to fill in those holes in the schedules partnered up with the Capital Areas Activities Conference for a series of crossover games to fill in those open dates. In 2022 the league moved all of their league games to weeks 3-9 and allowed schools to fill in weeks 1 and 2.
The SMAC is finally coming back together next season and will do it in a way where the teams are not playing all 9 games in the conference, giving schools a chance to pick up some non-conference games while welcoming back Gull Lake and Loy Norrix.
This summer the 8 football playing SMAC schools gave Gull Lake and Loy Norrix, and ultimatum is too strong of a word, but a deadline to announce their return, or being removed from the league completely. Gull Lake was very quick to say yes, Loy Norrix was a little more hesitant to say yes, but they did.
So, the SMAC will be back to 10 teams for the 2024 season. But not everyone will play everyone. The SMAC does return to a divisional alignment for next season, St. Joe, Lakeshore, Mattawan, Portage Central and Portage Northern making up the SMAC-West, while Gull Lake, Kalamazoo Central, Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, Battle Creek Central, and Battle Creek Lakeview making up the SMAC-East.
St. Joe and Lakeshore’s schedules are already available for next year.
| Week | St. Joseph | Lakeshore |
|
1 |
Niles | Grand Haven |
|
2 |
at Edwardsburg | at Niles |
|
3 |
Loy Norrix | Portage Central |
|
4 |
at Gull Lake | at Kalamazoo Central |
|
5 |
at Lakeshore | St. Joseph |
|
6 |
Portage Northern | Mattawan |
|
7 |
at Mattawan | at Battle Creek Lakeview |
|
8 |
Battle Creek Central | Gull Lake |
|
9 |
at Portage Central | at Portage Northern |
The two more interesting games on the Bears and Lancers schedules next year aren’t even league contests. Lakeshore’s opener against Grand Haven and St. Joe’s week 2 game at Edwardsburg.
Lakeshore hasn’t faced the Buccaneers since the 1982 and 1983 seasons, both losses. While St. Joe faced Edwardsburg in the 2019 and 2015 playoffs. St. Joe won in 2015 in the playoffs at St. Joe while Edwardsburg won in 2019 at Edwardsburg.
Loy Harvey passes
Former Benton Harbor girls basketball coach Lou Harvey passed away earlier this week at the age of 83. There were two names when it came to Benton Harbor basketball, Paul Wilhite and Lou Harvey. Harvey was the longtime coach of the Lady Tigers, helping lead them to a state championship in 2009. Harvey’s daughter Lisa Harvey-Gondrezick eventually took over the role of girls coach at Benton Harbor, coaching her daughters, his grand daughters Kalabrya and Kysre.
I only ran into Loy the two times a year that St. Joe and Benton Harbor played during the basketball seasons while I was either announcing or running the scoreboards for the games at St. Joe or keeping the scoreboard for St. Joe in the games at Farnum gym. While I was doing that in high school as a student or after I graduated, I was in the dead center of the two legends of girls coaches in the area between Harvey and St. Joe’s Rick Bloodworth.
The last time I saw Loy Harvey was during the Covid season of 2021, when Harvey was attending the St. Joseph Lakeshore boys game at St. Joseph when Harvey’s grandson Grant Gondrezick II played for the Lancers. You could tell that the body was in the 80’s, but you could also tell that the coaching mind was still locked in on the game.
Rest in peace coach…
