Changes revealed for cross country, swimming finals

TheM ichigan High School Athletic Association has announced changes to the cross country and girls swimming & diving tournaments, while expanding the field for girls golf back to traditional size.

Changes are being made in hopes to reduce the opportunity for spread of COVID-19.

The Executive Committee of the MHSAA— comprised of officers of the larger representative council— approved a one-season switch in postseason format for both sports.

Cross Country

This season’s Lower Peninsula cross country tournament will begin with an additional pre-regional round, which will divide traditional regionals into smaller groups in order to limit field sizes per race site.

A total of 18 pre-regional races per each of the four divisions will qualify the four top-placing teams and seven top individuals not on those teams to nine regionals per division.

At regional events, the top three teams and seven individuals not on those teamwill advance to eachof the finals.

The Division 1 and 2 state finals will be run on Friday Nov. 6. The Division 3 and 4 finals will be run on Nov. 7. All finals will be held from Michigan International Speedway.

To limitedfield size and mixing of schools, each division of the Lower Peninsula state finals for both boys and girls will be run over two races. Teams qualifying third from regionals, and all individual qualifiers will be in one section. Teams that finished first or second in their regionals will be in a second section.

Further details will be provided on the cross country pages of the MHSAA website.

Girls Swimming

Changes to the girls swimming & diving state finals in the Lower Peninsula were made to accommodate limits on individuals who may assemble together for indoor activities.

All diving will take place on Friday, Nov. 20, at three different sites to be determined. All qualifying divers will complete five dives, with the top 20 advancing to perform three more dives. From that second round, the top 16 will advance to perform their final three dives of the competition.

All swimming will events will take place on Saturday, Nov. 21, from one of the three sites. Only one heat will be run for each event as opposed to the traditional preliminary heat followed by the finals heat.

Scores from the swimming and diving portions will be combined to determine the final standings.

Further details will be provided on the girls swimming & diving page of the MHSAA website.

Girls Golf

The fields for the four Lower Peninsula girls golf state finals will expand to their traditional sizes after the executive committee previously approved a proposal to limit the fields due to outdoor gathering restrictions. Those restrictions were eased on Sept. 25 by Executive Order 183.

Regionals will again qualify the top three teams and top three individuals not on those teams to the finals.