THIS WEEK

Winter Tournament time has arrived, and we roll into a busy weekend featuring a wrestling team that has since claimed its first District title and a pioneering champion piling up accolades, along with a girls basketball team hoping to clinch its league tournament title this evening. We also announce our January MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” and supply plenty of highlights from Tuesday’s Battle of the Fans IX visit to Buchanan.

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AROUND THE STATE

Have You Herd? Buchanan Tradition Lives On Every year cheering in Buchanan High School’s student section is different – a different mix of students guarantees a different leadership style, different ideas and different levels of creativity. But let’s not confuse different with new. Buchanan has built one of the state’s richest student section traditions, and with the accolades to back it up – Battle of the Fans championships in 2013 and 2018 and four other finals finishes.

Caro Closing In On Historic Title Claim With three seniors who had played at least parts of the last two seasons on varsity, and a standout freshman making her debut, the Caro girls basketball team had plenty of reasons to make winning its league the goal this winter. But with Reese coming off its 12th-straight conference title – and Caro seeking its first since 1985 – history was not on the Tigers’ side.

Tate’s Return Sees Cass Tech Return To Elite It didn’t take LaTonya Tate long to begin her basketball coaching career. But it took her 20 years to find the right fit. Tate is in her fifth season as girls varsity basketball coach at Detroit Cass Tech, and the Technicians are experiencing success not seen since Tate was one of the state’s top players for Cass Tech during the mid-to-late 1980s.

Sandusky’s Ryan Repeats, Aims For 4 Logan Ryan had to learn how to handle losing. After a youth career that saw her win multiple national wrestling honors, including the NUWAY Nationals in 2017, Ryan’s freshman year competing at 140 and 145 pounds proved to be difficult. “I got destroyed that year,” the Sandusky sophomore said. Now the losses are much less frequent, but she has figured out how to turn them into positives.

Rivals Benefit By Combining Mat Forces Most Bark River-Harris and Powers North Central athletic teams have been fierce rivals for decades. The situation is much different in wrestling, however, as the two schools combined forces for the first time this winter through a co-op venture. “A year ago, our numbers were really down,” said BR-H coach Joe Racicot. “We were approached by the North Central AD (athletic director Randall McLeod) and he asked if we’d be interested in starting a co-op program.”

Be The Referee: Held Ball Or Traveling This week, MHSAA officials coordinator Sam Davis offers a basketball “You Make the Call” that comes into play when defensive and offensive players wind up in a stalemate. Be The Referee is a series of short messages designed to help educate people on the rules of different sports, to help them better understand the art of officiating, and to recruit officials.

This Week In High School Sports: 2/14/20 This week’s show highlights Farmington United gymnast Elena Vargo, presents Game Balls to Mount Clemens basketball’s Javaughn Hannah and Houghton basketball’s Brad Simonsen, explains hoops’ held ball rule and discusses the multi-sport background of a Super Bowl star.

GAME TIME