DETROIT — As the fall sports calendar winds down for the Catholic High School League and the Michigan High School Athletic Association, nearly a dozen CHSL and archdiocesan Catholic high school teams are aspiring to achieve the ultimate championship honors. Here’s a rundown of all the action over the next two weeks:
CHSL girls swimming and diving
The Catholic League holds its final fall championship at noon Saturday (Nov. 16) at the Livonia Recreation Center. The word “unprecedented” doesn’t begin to describe the Marlins’ domination of this event: winners 28 years in a row, and 50 of 51 finals dating back to 1967.
The race for second best has been monopolized for the most part over the years by Bloomfield Hills Marian, who has the distinction of breaking into Mercy’s winning streak in 1990.
In October, Mercy won the Oakland County swim and dive championship for the 23rd time.
MHSAA football
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep hired an outside firm to plow the heavy snowfall from its red artificial turf for Saturday’s 1 p.m. Division 3 regional final against River Rouge.
At Royal Oak Shrine, it was all shovels on deck to clear the snow off its natural turf. The Knights host a Division 8 regional final against Fowler. Kickoff is at 1 p.m.
University of Detroit Jesuit goes across town for a 6 p.m. contest Friday against Detroit Martin Luther King on King’s Lorenzo Wright Field.
Detroit Loyola travels to Cass City in the Thumb area for a 1 p.m. Division 7 regional Saturday.
The winners move on to semi-final games on neutral sites Nov. 22-23. The finals on Nov. 29-30 will be staged at Ford Field in downtown Detroit.
MHSAA volleyball
Season-long No. 1-rated Mercy shook off a near season-ending nightmare by sweeping Detroit Cass Tech 3-0 Thursday (Nov. 14) to advance to the Division 1 quarterfinals in its quest of the school’s first-ever state championship.
Two nights earlier, in a regional final at Farmington High, Marian challenged the Marlins in five nerve-wracking sets. Mercy won the first two sets, 25-22 and 25-12; Marian kept its upset hopes alive the next two to tie the match, 25-19 and 30-28, before Mercy settled down for a 15-6 victory.
Mercy has made it to the state finals only once, in 2010. They lost to Marian.
Four archdiocesan Catholic high schools made it to the quarterfinals Tuesday, Nov. 19. Here’s the schedule:
Division 1: Mercy vs. Macomb L’anse Creuse North, 7:30 p.m., at St. Clair County Community College, Port Huron. The winner will play either Ann Arbor Skyline or Livonia Churchill in a semi-final at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, at Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek.
Division 2: Notre Dame Prep vs. Warren Regina, 6 p.m. at the same Port Huron location. The winner moves on to a semi-final match against either Lake Odessa Lakewood or Ida at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, in Battle Creek.
Division 3: Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central vs. Hudson at 6 p.m. at Adrian Madison. The winner will play either Traverse City St. Francis or Beaverton at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, in Battle Creek.
The finals will be played Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Kellogg Arena, Battle Creek.
MHSAA girls swim and dive
No. 2-ranked Mercy will be aiming for its third straight state Division 1 championship (and 10th in school history) on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 22-23, at the Holland Aquatic Center.
Both wins were not for the faint-hearted. Last year, the Marlins nipped runner-up Brighton for third-place in the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, for a two-point victory. In 2017, Mercy took the title without winning a race, but by placing a finisher in the top 10 in 10 of the 12 events.
Coach Mike Venos has won two state titles at Mercy to go along with the six he won at Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice.
Division 3 competition will be going on the same weekend at Oakland University involving No. 3-ranked Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood (2018 runner-up), No. 3 Marian; No. 7 Pontiac Notre Dame Prep; and No. 8 Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett.
